Philanthropy 
in  Missions 


1 

^mmmji^ 

[ 

:.V 

:o60 

.S3 
1901 

M 

1 

PM 

FWKXimiX^^^-r.'  -        .'.^ 

^ 

^umenical 
Missionary 

►nference 
:\idies 


tihraxy  of  t:he  trheolo^ical  ^eminarjo 


PRINCETON  •  NEW  JERSEY 


•d^D- 


PRESENTED  BY 

Delavan  L,  Pier  son 

BV  2060  .E3  1901 
Ecumenical  Conference  on 

Foreign  Missions,  New  Ycjrk, 
Philanthropy  in  missions 


Philanthropy  in  Missions 


ECUMENICAL  MISSIONARY  CONFERENCE 
STUDIES  I-V 


FOREIGN    MISSIONS    LIBRARY 

156    FIFTH    AVENUE 

NEW    YORK 

I901 


We  love,  because  He  first  loved  us. 
I  John,  iv.  ig. 


THE    WINTHROP    PRKSS 
NEW    YORK 


Price  twenty-five  cents,   postpaid. 


CONTENTS 

Study  I.     One  Motive  in  Many  Methods 5 

The  Love  of  Christ  Constraineth  Us — Philanthropy 
Shown  in  the  Methods — Illustrations  of  Missionary 
Philanthropy — All  Methods  Evangelistic. 

Study  II.  Personal  Presentation  of  the  Gospel.  .  15 
Nature  of  the  Message — Condition  of  the  People, 
Moral  and  Spiritual — Lines  of  Approach  :  Through 
Social  Intercourse  ;  Through  Meetings  ;  Through 
the  Truth  Contained  in  Non-Christian  Religions  ; 
Through  Direct  Preaching  of  the  Gospel  as  the  Power 
of  God  Unto  Salvation,  satisfying  the  universal 
need — Development  of  the  Native  Church  in  Spirit- 
ual Life — Development  of  the  Native  Church  as  an 
Evangelistic  Force. 

Study  III.     Medical  Work 31 

The  Need. — Most  Immediate  and  Influential  Means 
of  Gaining  Access  to  all  Classes — Hospitals,  Dispen- 
saries and  Visiting — The  Missionary  Physician — Mo- 
tive and  Opportunity  of  the  Missionary  Physician — 
Medical  Training  of  Natives. 

Study  IV.     Literary  Work 41 

Bible  Translation — Example  of  the  Early  Church — 
Need  of  General  Literature — Literary  Character — 
Printing  and  Distribution. 

Study  V.     Educational  Work 54 

Education  Inherent  in  Christianity — Non-Chris- 
tian Education  Inadequate — Religious  Character: 
Emphatically  Christian  ;  Determined  by  the  Person- 
ality of  the  Teacher — Educational  Character  and 
Aims — Advantages  of  Manual  and  Industrial  Train- 
ing— Necessity  for  Training  in  Teaching — Evan- 
gelistic Opportunity  and  Influence. 


PREFACE. 

This  book  is  made  up  almost  entirely  of  quotations 
from  the  Ecumenical  Missionary  Conference  Report.* 
In  most  cases  the  exact  words  of  the  author  are  given, 
though  sometimes  it  has  been  necessary  to  make  verbal 
changes  in  order  that  the  meaning  of  the  part  quoted 
shall  be  clear  when  taken  from  the  context.  In  a  few 
instances  the  substance  only  of  what  was  said  is  given. 
The  subjects  of  the  quotations  will  be  found  more  fully 
elaborated  in  the  Report  itself. 

The  book  has  been  compiled  with  several  objects  in 
view.  Its  first  object  is  to  show  that  Christian  missions 
of  necessity  embrace  all  kinds  of  philanthropic  work  and 
that  philanthropy  in  its  broadest  sense  is  the  motive  of 
all  missionary  work.  Indirectly  these  brief  studies 
should  lead  to  the  conviction  that  the  temporal  need  is 
only  an  evidence  of  the  deeper  spiritual  need,  and  that 
work  for  humanity  in  general  is  incomplete  when  not 
distinctly  Christian. 

The  second  object  of  this  book  is  to  make  it  possible 
for  those  who  may  not  find  time  to  read  the  full  Report 
to  gain  a  fair  insight  into  missionary  work  and  methods 
as  surveyed  and  discussed  at  the  Ecumenical  Missionary 
Conference. 

The  third  object  is  to  provide  a  course  of  studies  for 
missionary  meetings. 

W.  Henry  Grant, 

Assistant  General  Secretary  Ecumenical  Conference. 


American  Tract  Society,  New  York,  looo,  2  vols    $1.50 
Religious  Tract  Society,  London,  6s. 


Philanthropy    in   Missions. 

STUDY  I. 

ONE  MOTIVE  IN  MANY  METHODS. 
"  The  Love  of  Christ  Constraineth  Us." 

Philanthropy  in  missions  is  a  Christlike,  all-embracing 
love  for  man.  It  is  the  impulse  which  sends  the  mis- 
sionary forth  and  which  acts  upon  him  in  the  field  in 
leading  him  to  extend  or  vary  his  methods  to  meet  con- 
ditions he  could  not  have  anticipated. 

There  is  a  comm.on  impression  that  Philanthropy  ex- 
ists on  a  large  scale  apart  from  Christianity.  But 
where  in  Asia,  Africa,  or  the  Islands  of  the  Pacific  is 
there  any  sort  of  benevolent  work  conducted  by  non- 
Christians  for  people  of  another  nation?  We  know  of 
no  such  work  persistently  sustained  which  has  not  its 
root  and  supply  in  the  Christian  Church.  A  distinction 
is  too  commonly  made  between  the  Philanthropic  and 
the  Missionary  motive,  as  though  the  one  cared  for 
man's  temporal  affairs  while  the  other  concerned  itself 
with  his  spiritual  interests.  No  such  distinction  is  pos- 
sible. Philanthropy  grows  from  the  same  root  and 
pervades  the  whole  work  of  Christian  missions.  Both 
are  united  in  that  love  for  mankind  which  extends  itself 
into  persistent  effort  for  their  full  salvation,  and  which, 
while  it  begins  with  the  felt  wants  of  men,  can  not  be 
satisfied  till  it  brings  them  into  a  personal  union  with 
Christ  through  the  Gospel. 

God  makes  his  universe  the  organ  and  expression  of 
his  love.  To  such  love  there  is,  there  can  be,  no  stopping 
place.     A  God  who  so  loved  would  not  spare  even  his 


6  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

only  begotten  Son.  A  Son  so  sent  would  fill  his  life  with 
miracles  of  love,  to  cleanse  the  foul  leper,  or  raise  the 
widow's  son.  Nor  would  he  refuse  to  bear  the  bitter 
cross.  Thus  we  are  brought,  and  thus  we  may  bring 
those  to  whom  we  are  sent,  face  to  face  with  the  highest 
expression  of  Divine  love  in  the  cross  of  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  (Gordon,  II.,  103.)  The  passion  of  a  Christ- 
like love  for  human  lives  develops  in  the  soul  of  the 
Christian  disciple  powers  and  activities  that  reflect  the 
mind  of  Christ.  To  a  clear  vision  of  the  world,  and  a 
deep  feeling  toward  the  world,  our  Lord  joined  active 
effort  for  the  world,  and  out  of  this  holy  triad  of  powers 
issues  the  passion  of  his  love  which  for  us  to  know  is  to 
be  filled  with  all  the  fullness  of  God.  (Hall,  I.,  149.) 
The  missionary's  impulse  comes  from  likeness  to  Christ 
in  consecration  to  the  will  of  the  Father  and  in  the 
yearning  to  save  men.  Thus  love  originates  all  mis- 
sionary effort.  This  passion  for  redeeming  humanity, 
based  on  love  for  a  personal  Christ,  is  one  of  the  greatest 
phenomena  of  the  century.  (Capen,  I.,  190.)  As  love 
shapes  the  aim,  love  unchecked  must  shape  its  opera- 
tions. The  missionary,  whether  he  be  a  preacher,  or  a 
teacher,  or  a  writer,  must  be  full  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ, 
and  must  reflect  the  life  of  Christ  in  his  own  life,  or 
he  will  never  win  men  to  the  service  of  his  Master. 
(Washburn,  II.,  130.)  Be  our  methods  of  work  what 
they  may,  the  extent  to  which  they  succeed  in  enthroning 
Christ  in  the  hearts  of  the  people  is  the  measure  of 
their  efficiency.  (Preston,  II.,  loi.)  In  the  absence  of 
yearning  love  for  the  hearers  and  the  opposers,  the  mis- 
sionary, however  splendidly  furnished  otherwise,  had 
much  better  return  to  his  own  land.  .  .  .  Not  by 
might  of  human  knowledge  nor  by  the  power  of  human 
eloquence,  but  by  the  spirit  of  the  Lord  God,  reincar- 
nated  in    human    hearts,    preparing   and   pervading   the 


ONE  MOTIVE  IN  MANY  METHODS    7 

message,  thousands  in  all  lands  have  yielded  themselves 
to  the  power  of  the  invisible  God.  (Oldham,  II.,  88.) 
A  single,  far-seeing,  loving  desire  to  lead  men  to  Jesus 
Christ,  then,  distinguishes  Philanthropy  in  missions 
from  all  efforts  which  stop  at  relieving  their  material 
distress.  If  the  school  teacher,  or  physician,  or  writer 
in  mission  fields  has  not  this  desire  he  is  not  a  mis- 
sionary. If  he  is  a  missionary,  even  though  like  Paul 
his  daily  occupation  be  tent-making,  the  missionary  Phi- 
lanthropy cries  in  his  heart :  "  Woe  is  me  if  I  preach  not 
the  Gospel."  As  we  can  not  limit  or  control  the  needs 
of  the  various  classes  of  men  encountered  by  mission- 
aries, those  sent  out  should  be  fitted  for  all  emergencies 
and  all  demands  by  this  far-seeing  Divine  love.  Because 
the  missionary  enterprise  of  evangelization  is  full  of  de- 
mands that  are  unexpected  and  perplexing,  it  is  the 
character  of  the  missionary  rather  than  the  method 
adopted  which  determines  the  outcome  of  the  mission. 
How  often  have  we  been  amazed  at  the  comparative  un- 
fruitfulness  of  splendidly  equipped  men,  while  others  of 
no  special  mental  outfit  seem  to  have  found  the  secret 
hiding  place  of  power.  (Oldham,  II.,  87.)  "In  Jesus 
Christ,"  by  stating  the  position  of  the  Christian,  defines 
his  point  of  view,  defines  the  inspiration  and  the  law  of 
his  relation  to  everything  outside  of  Christ,  and  defines 
the  source  of  the  power  that  is  effective  through  his 
activity.  (Robson,  I.,  365.)  In  his  personal  qualities 
the  missionary  must  truly  represent  his  Master  before 
men.  No  other  qualification  or  combination  of  qualifica- 
tions will  compensate  for  the  lack  of  that  Divine  Vision 
which  has  captivated  the  heart  and  life  for  Christ,  which 
makes  a  man  live,  and  move,  and  have  his  being  among 
the  unseen  realities.  (Mackay,  I.,  301.)  According  to 
the  New  Testament  standard  the  passion  of  a  Christ- 
like love  for  human  lives  is  a  greater  thing  than  elo- 


8  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

quence,  knowledge,  or  faith.  .  .  .  Without  mission- 
ary passion,  ministers  are  not  able  ministers  of  the  New 
Testament;  they  are  disabled,  deficient,  half-equipped; 
they  lack  the  fullness  of  the  Spirit  of  Christ.  (Hall,  I., 
148-149.)  It  is  the  duty  of  the  missionary  to  take  in 
the  Divine  Spirit  as  the  dominating  power  of  his  nature, 
and  to  receive  from  him  direction,  and  guidance,  and 
help.  (Foster,  I.,  324.)  In  reading  the  lives  of  Chris- 
tians of  many  denominations,  of  varied  intellectual  at- 
tainments, engaged  in  a  great  variety  of  work  in  many 
lands,  the  one  fact  that  confronts  you  is  that  these 
missionaries  believe  in  the  presence  of  the  Spirit  of  God. 
(Halsey,  I.,  174.) 

Philanthropy  Shown  in  the  Methods. 

The  motive  of  every  missionary  being  love  and  his 
aim  the  personal  presentation  of  the  Gospel,  his  method 
of  evangelization  is  simply  the  means  by  which  he 
makes  the  Gospel  of  love  a  reality  to  the  people.  The 
simplicity  of  our  Saviour's  commands  to  preach  the 
Gospel  to  every  creature,  has  led  many  to  think  that  the 
work  of  evangelization  is  solely  the  work  of  preaching 
as  from  a  pulpit.  But  experience  in  the  field  soon 
shows  that  evangelization  is  a  work  of  great  complexity. 
Heathen  nations  have  no  general  preparation  for  com- 
prehending the  Gospel  message.  The  idea  of  disinterest- 
edness in  the  missionary  is  commonly  beyond  the  reach 
of  the  heathen  mind,  so  that  his  approach  repels  rather 
than  attracts.  Caste  and  class  combine  with  pride  of 
scholarship  and  philosophy  to  fortify  many  against  the 
missionary's  discourse.  Men,  women,  and  children  are 
separate  classes,  requiring  differing  methods  of  treat- 
ment. The  seclusion  of  the  women  renders  access  to 
them  by  ministers  nearly  impossible  and  compels  in  many 
cases  the  use  of  other  methods  than  the  pulpit.     Super- 


ONE  MOTIVE  IN  MANY  METHODS    9 

stition  forges  many  a  heavy  chain,  and  it  is  always 
around  woman's  neck  that  its  links  are  most  tightly 
fastened.  It  is  the  venerable  grandmothers  of  China, 
the  Bibis  of  the  Indian  Zenana,  who  to-day  are  keeping 
many  a  man  from  entering  the  kingdom.  It  is  from 
woman's  lips  that  that  poison  flows  which  enters  deepest 
into  the  life  of  the  nation,  for  shut  out  from  all  that 
would  enlighten,  woman  instils  into  her  children's  minds 
the  darkness  of  her  own.  The  tightly  shut  doors  of  the 
Zenanas  will  only  open  to  a  woman's  touch ;  it  must  be 
a  woman's  voice  that  tells  there  the  story  of  redeeming 
love,  and  the  same  is  true  in  modified  degrees  of  heathen 
homes  the  wide  world  over.  (Mrs.  McLaren,  I.,  114.) 
There  is  no  work  which  God  has  given  to  women  which 
exceeds  in  beauty  and  grandeur  the  work  to  be  done  by 
woman  for  woman.  (Mrs.  Archibald,  II.,  loi.)  This 
complexity  of  the  work  of  evangelization  necessitates 
the  use  of  many  methods,  the  only  requirement  being, 
that  besides  all  other  training  and  ability,  the  missionary 
possess  the  true  motive  and  purpose.  One  missionary 
thus  inspired,  uses  the  method  of  formal  preaching,  an- 
other the  method  of  teaching,  another  the  method  of 
medical  work,  another  the  method  of  literary  work. 
Yet  all  preach  the  Gospel.  This  diversity  of  methods 
accords  with  the  practice  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  model 
Evangelist  and  Missionary ;  who  in  sending  a  list  of  his 
works,  to  convince  the  inquiring  prisoner  of  Herod  of 
his  Messiahship,  spoke  of  formal  preaching  as  only  one 
of  many.  "  The  blind  receive  their  sight,  the  lame  walk, 
the  lepers  are  cleansed,  the  deaf  hear,  the  dead  are 
raised,  and  to  the  poor  the  Gospel  is  preached."  Now, 
he  used  the  written  word  of  Scripture  and  expository 
discourse,  now  he  called  in  his  power  to  heal ;  now  he 
made  himself  a  social  leader  with  limitless  conversa- 
tional powers.     Yet  he  preached  the  Gospel  in  all  that 


lo  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

he  did.  It  is  the  experience  in  the  missionary  fields  of 
to-day  that  all  these  kinds  of  work  evangelize.  If  they 
did  not  serve  the  evangelistic  purpose  they  would  have 
no  place  in  modern  missions. 

Illustrations  of  Missionary  Philanthropy. 

There  is  sometimes  a  tendency  to  check  the  missionary 
who  takes  up  what  is  called  "  merely  philanthropic " 
work  for  sufferers  by  calamity.  But  the  experience  of 
those  in  the  field  as  well  as  the  example  of  the  Master  is 
a  complete  condemnation  of  such  limitations  of  love. 
Whatever  "  opens  doors  "  in  a  country  like  China  or 
Thibet  may  well  be  welcomed  as  from  the  hand  of  God. 
As  famine  proved  a  mighty  blessing  to  old  Jacob's  people 
so  it  has  proved  a  mighty  blessing  to  the  people  of 
China.  The  happy  results  of  famine  relief  are:  the 
saving  of  life;  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  home  life; 
the  opening  up  of  the  country  to  missionary  residence 
and  effort ;  the  actual  saving  of  souls.  Many  recipients 
of  aid  will  become  inquirers  after  the  truth,  some  of 
them  will  become  true  penitents  genuinely  converted. 
Many  who  have  received  no  aid  whatever  have  yielded 
to  the  conviction  that  the  Christian  Church,  which  not 
only  preaches  but  practices  love  to  one's  neighbor,  is 
the  true  Church.  (Laughlin,  II.,  233.)  A  missionary 
in  India  tells  of  villages  which  had  always  refused  to 
receive  the  Gospel  preacher.  But  when  famine  afflicted 
the  land  the  people  of  those  villages  came  by  thousands 
asking  help  from  the  missionaries  whose  love  they  knew, 
and  afterward  sent  formal  deputations  to  apologize  for 
the  hostility  of  the  past  and  to  promise  good-will  for 
the  future.  (Winsor,  II.,  230.)  Can  any  form  of  evan- 
gelistic work  be  more  profound  in  its  effects  than  that 
compassionate  care  for  lepers,  of  whom  it  is  said  that 
"  When  the  lepers  realize  that  Christ  still  lives  and  pities 


ONE    MOTIVE    IN    MANY    METHODS       ii 

them  and  is  willing  to  save  them,  the  effect  on  them  is 
so  marvelous  that  it  makes  the  missionary  realize  as 
never  before  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Saviour  of  the 
world."  (Miss  Budden,  II.,  250.)  Can  we  overestimate 
the  influence  upon  the  heathen  and  Christian  natives 
alike  of  a  refined  woman  binding  up  the  sores  of  a  poor 
leper  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ?  (Bailey,  II.,  249.) 
When  the  Christian  missionary  is  moved  to  provide 
homes  and  schools  for  the  child-widows  of  India,  as  one 
says,  "  In  every  case  the  love  and  care  which  they  re- 
ceived was  a  revelation  to  them,  and  nearly  everyone 
yielded  with  joy  to  her  Saviour,  to  become  a  new  creature 
in  every  sense.  (Miss  Abbott,  II.,  242.)  Similar  re- 
sults attend  the  services  of  missionaries  to  orphans. 
Painstaking  care  .has  given  a  practicable  system  of 
raised  letters  to  the  blind  in  various  mission  fields. 
Shall  we  ignore  or  begrudge  the  services  of  missionaries 
to  such  work?  and  if  so  on  what  grounds?  Blind 
Peter,  a  Chinese  beggar,  was  taken  from  the  streets  and 
taught  to  read  the  Bible.  He  received  the  truth,  talked 
it,  lived  it,  sang  it.  He  also  made  the  organ  tell  it  in 
many  Gospel  services.  He  was  a  valued  and  trusted 
helper.  His  sincere  Christian  life  and  victorious  death 
both  told  of  the  power  of  God  upon  him.  (Cunningham, 
II.,  244.)  Surely  the  love  which  opens  the  powers  of 
such  unfortunates  not  only  reveals  the  heart  of  the  Mas- 
ter himself,  but  has  received  his  favor  and  blessing. 

So,  too.  medical  work  is  founded  on  a  need  which  is 
universal  and  felt  by  all.  It  has  proved  a  permanent 
agency  of  evangelization.  Were  the  offices  of  the  doctor 
merely  a  bribe  to  induce  men  to  listen  to  the  Gospel 
they  would  soon  lose  their  power  to  draw  men  to  Christ. 
We  believe  them  to  be  the  necessary  outcome  of  that 
humanity  which  Christ  taught  and  lived.  (Post,  II., 
195- )      Why    should    it    be    supposed    that    the    Gospel 


12  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

preached  conversationally  by  a  woman  physician  in  an 
atmosphere  made  friendly  by  gratitude  for  her  skill,  will 
not  reach  the  heart  as  directly  as  when  preached  from 
a  pulpit  or  taught  in  a  woman's  meeting?  (Dr.  Rachel 
Benn,  II.,  194.)  There  can  be  no  difference  of  opinion 
upon  the  evangelistic  value  of  the  work  of  literary  mis- 
sionaries in  the  translation  of  the  Bible.  "  To  give  to 
men  the  message  of  God  on  lips  touched  with  a  live  coal 
from  the  altar  of  God  is  the  first  true  greeting  of  the 
ideal  missionary  as  he  lays  the  foundation  of  a  living 
church.  To  hand  to  his  people  God's  written  revelation ; 
plain,  permanent,  perfect,  as  far  as  anything  partly  hu- 
man can  attain  to  the  perfect,  is  when  his  other  work  is 
over,  his  ideal  farewell."  (Edmonds,  II.,  7.)  But  the 
importance  of  providing  general  Christian  literature  as 
an  agency  becomes  more  apparent  every  year  in  every 
part  of  the  mission  field.  "  We  have  taught  the  children 
to  read,  and  having  done  that  we  must  put  something  to 
read  into  their  hands.  (Miss  Thoburn,  II.,  7^.)  The 
evangelistic  value  of  the  literary  method  of  approach  to 
the  people  appears  on  realizing  that  the  tract,  the  paper, 
or  the  book  goes  where  the  missionary  can  not,  and 
abides  after  the  missionary  has  gone  his  way.  But 
neglect  of  this  method  is  surrender  to  the  enemy. 
"  The  Christian  nations  have  no  copyright,  no 
monopoly  of  the  world's  knowledge.  If  the  Chris- 
tian does  not  go  with  the  Christian's  interpretation 
of  nature  and  of  nature's  God,  someone  else  will 
go  with  another  interpretation."  (Spencer,  II.,  166.) 
Arabic  literature,  proud,  self-confident,  domineering, 
stands  forth  like  the  mighty  Goliath  of  a  vast  Philistine 
camp  to  challenge  the  armies  of  the  living  God  (Hul- 
bert,  II.,  46.)  The  defenders  of  Hinduism  are  on  the 
whole  much  better  equipped  in  respect  to  periodical  lit- 
erature than  are  the  exponents  of  Christianity.     (Lovett, 


ONE    MOTIVE    IN    MANY    METHODS      13 

IL,  42.)  When  we  bear  in  mind  that  tons  upon  tons 
of  atheistic,  agnostic,  and  pernicious  leaflets  are  issued 
annually  we  dare  not  close  our  eyes  to  the  ever- 
increasing  and  imperative  obligation  upon  the  mis- 
sion presses,  to  print  Christian  literature,  and  to 
see  what  is  printed  is  put  into  circulation.  (Rudi- 
sill,  II.,  56.)  If  you  take  books  like  any  of  those 
great  Christian  classics  that  have  become  part  of  the 
lifeblood  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  nature,  and  which  are 
incalculable  in  their  influence  here,  you  have  the  measure 
of  the  opportunity  abroad  now  before  the  Christian 
Church.  The  great  missionary  weapon  of  the  Twentieth 
Century  must  be  a  literature  saturated  with  the  Gospel 
and  efficient  for  the  proclamation  of  Christ.  (Lovett, 
II. ,  84.)  This  impulse  of  Christian  love  is  also  fully 
justified  by  the  blessing  of  God  seen  in  the  evangelistic 
effect  of  schools  which  are  taught  by  missionaries  full 
of  the  spirit  of  Christ.  "  We  can  not  teach  a  geography 
lesson  without  striking  a  blow  at  both  Hinduism  and 
Mohammedanism.  ...  In  the  Christian  College  we 
have  the  best  evangelistic  agency  that  there  is  for  reach- 
ing all  classes  of  the  community.  (Wilkie,  II.,  140.) 
There  is  no  sphere  of  work  which  promises  higher  re- 
sults to  the  man  who  is  capable  of  reaching  those  re- 
sults ;  there  is  no  sphere  of  work  which  demands  greater 
spiritual  earnestness,  and  quickness,  and  sensitiveness. 
(Thompson,  II.,  118.)  It  is  a  matter  of  constant  experi- 
ence that  a  heathen  father  deliberately  sends  his  son  to 
the  mission  school  for  the  sake  of  the  moral  teaching  of 
the  creed  which  he  does  not  accept.  (Barber,  II.,  116.) 
More  and  more  missionaries  are  moved  by  their  desire 
to  see  the  people  lifted  to  a  higher  grade  of  life,  to  offer 
Christian  education,  primary,  industrial,  or  higher,  to 
larger  classes  of  those  submerged  in  superstition  and  ig- 
norance,    (Leonard,  II.,  119.) 


14  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

All  Methods  Evangelistic. 

It  is  necessary  only  to  study  in  detail  the  work  of  the 
Hospital,  the  Dispensary,  the  Press,  and  the  School  to 
see  that  Ihey  are  co-ordinate  in  value  with  the  pulpit 
as  means  of  securing  an  entrance  for  the  Gospel  to 
the  hearts  of  the  people,  provided  the  missionary  using 
them  is  an  evangelist  full  of  the  spirit  of  Christ.  And 
no  man  lacking  this  spirit  can  be  called  a  missionary. 
The  further  we  gO'  the  more  clear  does  it  become  that 
the  love  of  Christ  in  the  worker  makes  every  branch  of 
the  work  fruitful.  These  various  kinds  of  work,  often 
called  auxiliary  to  the  work  of  preaching  the  Gospel, 
are  not  even  indirect  methods  of  evangelization  where 
the  missionary's  qualifications  are  spiritual.  They  are 
direct  and  conclusive  expressions  of  Christian  Philan- 
thropy— the  limitless  love  of  Jesus  Christ  for  mankind — 
and  it  is  this  love  which  has  compelled  missionaries  to 
adopt  many  methods,  becoming  all  things  to  all  men,  if 
by  any  means  they  might  save  some. 


PHILANTHROPY   IN    MISSIONS  15 


STUDY  II. 
PERSONAL  PRESENTATION  OF  THE  GOSPEL. 

Nature  of  the  Message. 

The  purpose  of  Foreign  Missions  is  to  enthrone  Christ 
in  the  hearts  of  men,  to  make  all  men  the  temples  for  his 
personal  indwelling,  that  he  may  be  the  firstborn  among 
many  brethren  and  may  fill  the  world  with  himself. 
(Strong,  I.,  70.)  It  is  the  aim  of  Foreign  Missions  to 
make  Jesus  Christ  known  to  the  world,  with  a  view  to 
the  full  salvation  of  men  and  their  gathering  into  true 
and  living  churches.  (Speer,  I.,  yy.)  Our  aim  is  to 
change  the  unconverted  and  indifferent  into  interested 
inquirers  and  these  inquirers  into  strong  and  aggressive 
Christian  believers ;  and  we  are  to  do  this  through  per- 
sonal dealing  with  them,  recognizing  in  the  most  de- 
graded the  possibilities  of  restored  moral  and  spiritual 
fellowship  with  God  and  brotherhood  to  man,  including 
capabilities  of  sharing  the  best  society  on  earth  or  in 
heaven,  Jesus  Christ  was  the  highest  and  most  perfect 
personality  the  world  has  ever  seen,  the  ideal  son  and 
brother  in  actual  realization,  and  therefore  our  supreme 
model  in  personal  dealing  with  men.  Holding  this  con- 
scious sonship  and  brotherhood  as  our  highest  dignity 
and  most  priceless  possession,  we  seek  in  the  name  and 
Spirit  of  Christ  to  awaken  the  same  consciousness  in 
those  to  whom  we  are  sent.  (Gordon,  II.,  102.)  The 
missionary  is  primarily  a  messenger  to  tell  a  great  story, 
and  also  a  witness  of  what  the  Christ  of  that  story  has 
wrought  for  himself  and  the  world.  The  great  mass  of 
heathendom  is  not  scholarly,  is  not  philosophical;  it 
needs  not  argument  so  much  as  mercy,  relief,  sympathy, 
primary    instruction,    the    sight    of    pure    homes    and 


i6  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

Christly  lives,  and,  in  the  midst  of  all  these  things,  the 
lifting  up  of  the  one  Lord  and  Redeemer.  This  message 
should  be  carried  to  all  men  with  glowing  love  and 
radiant  loveliness  of  spirit.  (Barrows,  I.,  357.)  Evan- 
gelical Christianity  teaches  a  life  of  simple  faith  in 
an  Almighty  Redeemer,  of  personal  and  immediate 
fellowship  with  a  personal  God.  And  since  it  preserves 
intact  the  full  idea  of  man's  personality  its  value  will 
be  felt  in  proportion  as  paganism  is  stirred  by  the  pro- 
gressive forces  of  civilization,  for  these  call  into  activity 
the  individuality  of  man.  (Purves,  I.,  373-374-)  When 
Christianity  sends  its  ambassadors  to  heathendom,  to 
save  the  individual  is  the  first  step,  while  the  objective 
is  the  Christianizing  of  the  nation.  Every  member  of 
the  body  politic  must  be  made  familiar  in  idea  and  in  ex- 
perience with  the  good  news  of  a  personal  God  who 
reveals  himself,  who  incarnated  as  man  has  lived  and 
died  to  make  atonement  for  sin,  who  now  lives  to 
inspire  and  help  all  willing  souls  to  conquer  sm.  (Bar- 
ber, II.,  112.)  There  is  no  permanent  advance  in 
ethical  prosperity  or  orderliness  in  society  which  does 
not  begin  with  the  regeneration  of  the  individual  soul. 
(Hartranft,  I.,  348.)  The  great  mission  fields  need 
men  and  women  who  are  ready  and  willing  to  spend  and 
be  spent  in  making  Christ  known  to  individuals.  (Tho- 
burn,  II.,  109-110.)  The  man  who  can  say,  the  Lord 
Jesus  saved  me  from  the  guilt  of  sin  by  dying  for  me, 
he  is  saving  me  daily  by  the  Holy  Spirit  from  the  power 
of  sin,  and  he  is  going  to  save  me  with  his  full  salvation 
when  he  comes  again — the  man  who  can  say  this  on  his 
own  account  and  out  of  the  depth  of  his  heart — that  is 
the  man  for  a  missionary.     (Stock,  I.,  93.) 

Condition  of  the  People,  Moral  and  Spiritual. 
The  actual  task  of  the  missionary  implies  a  dealing 


PRESENTATION    OF    THE    GOSPEL        17 

with  men  who  are  not  simply  erringly  or  defectively 
religious,  but  who  are  antagonized  by  sin  to  true  re- 
ligion. In  every  man,  whether  inside  or  outside  of 
Christendom,  the  effect  of  sin  has  been  to  generate  an 
inclination  toward  evil,  a  dislike  of  submission  to  spir- 
itual influences,  a  materialistic  self-centered  temper. 
This  irreligion  is  the  great  difficulty  of  the  evangelist 
dealing  with  human  nature  in  Christian  lands;  for  the 
missionary  in  heathen  lands  it  is  a  difficulty,  not  less  in 
any  way,  but  rather  the  greater,  in  that  it  lies  intrenched 
behind  religions  which  conceal  and  shelter  it.  (Robson, 
I.,  365.)  Mighty  religious  systems  have  had  sway  for 
centuries  in  the  distant  East.  What  claim  can  have 
more  weight  upon  us  than  the  utter  failure  of  these  sys- 
tems to  redeem  the  races  among  whom  they  had  their 
origin?  Granted  all  their  good,  yet  the  final  test  must 
be  what,  as  a  whole,  they  have  made  of  their  peoples. 
Pure  transcendental  philosophy  has  ruled  amidst  the 
leaders  of  the  Hindu  races.  But  there  was  no  person- 
ality, and  there  could  be  no  Christ.  Pantheism  has 
done  its  utmost  during  millenniums,  and  what  do  we 
find?  It  has  blurred  the  sense  of  personality,  for  God 
is  all  and  even  sin  is  from  him;  moral  power  has 
followed  personal  responsibility  into  its  grave;  the 
common  people  bow  before  idols  whose  temples  are 
sculptured  with  obscenity ;  the  Nautch  girl  and  the  tem- 
ple prostitute  bring  the  sanctions  of  religion  to  their 
shame;  woman  is  degraded;  child-marriage  legalizes 
brutal  lust  and  dooms  myriads  of  girl-widows  to  lives 
of  ignominy;  and  caste  relentlessly  imposes  slavery 
upon  vast  multitudes  of  pariahs.  That  is  what  thou- 
sands of  years  of  Brahmanism  have  done  for  India. 
(Barber,  II.,  330.)  Time  fails  me  to  depict  adequately 
modern  Hinduism;  with  its  absolute  divorce  between 
religion  and  morality;  so  that  a  man  may  be  at  once  a 


i8  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

most  devout  worshiper  of  the  gods,  a  priest  reverenced 
as  such  and  bowed  down  to  by  the  people,  and  yet  guilty 
of  every  vice  and  immorality  of  life.  The  vast  majority 
of  the  pious  endowments  are  corrupt  to  the  core.  They 
are  a  mass  of  crime  and  vice  and  gigantic  swindling. 
The  Brahman  priesthood  of  to-day  is  the  mainstay  of 
every  unholy,  immoral,  and  cruel  custom  and  supersti- 
tion in  the  land.  (Chamberlain,  I.,  503.)  Many  people 
think  that  the  South  Sea  Islanders  are  better  without 
the  Gospel,  and  ought  not  to  be  troubled  with  our 
civilization,  but  these  people  have  never  seen  the  crimes, 
the  cannibalism,  the  polygamy,  the  infanticide,  nor  any 
or  all  of  the  cruelties  to  which  woman  is  there  sub- 
jected. (Paton,  I.,  497.)  Some  writers  have  said  that 
Christianity,  as  introduced  by  the  missionaries,  has 
robbed  the  native  of  his  primitive  hilarity,  and  made 
him  dull  and  unhappy.  Could  these  writers  have  seen 
cannibal  Fiji  as  it  was  when  the  glare  of  oven  fires 
spread  dismay  through  a  district,  and  the  exacting  de- 
mand for  human  victims  sat  like  a  perpetual  nightmare 
upon  the  community,  they  would  never  have  formed 
such  an  opinion.  (King,  I.,  500.)  The  non-Christian 
religions  should  be  studied  not  in  books  only,  but  in 
living  men,  and  in  the  religious  and  social  institutions 
which  have  grown  out  of  these  religions.  With  due 
respect  to  the  many  able  scholars  and  writers  who  have 
essayed  translations,  expositions,  and  popular  lectures 
on  the  religions  of  the  East,  it  is  impossible  to  state 
Eastern  thought  in  terms  of  the  English  language.  A 
Christian  language  of  necessity  gives  a  Christian  color- 
ing to  the  thought  expressed.  Edwin  Arnold's  "  Light 
of  Asia  "  gives  a  semi-Christian  Buddha.  It  is  a  beauti- 
ful poem,  but  not  Buddha  history.  Burma  and  Siam 
are  the  living  Buddhism.  (Wynkoop,  I.,  363.)  Could 
anything  more  touchingly  illustrate  the  utter  helpless- 


PRESENTATION    OF   THE   GOSPEL        19 

ness  of  Buddhism  than  its  inability  to  comfort  in  the 
presence  of  death?  How  impressive  the  contrast  with 
the  words  of  Him  who  once  stood  near  an  open  grave, 
and  said  to  the  mourners :  "  I  am  the  resurrection  and 
the  life ;  he  that  believeth  in  me,  though  he  were  dead, 
yet  shall  he  live."  Courage,  hope,  sympathy,  modesty, 
respect,  appreciation — these  are  some  of  the  elements 
in  the  right  Christian  attitude,  but  these  may  finally  be 
united  in  the  Christian  heart  in  a  great,  overwhelming 
compassion  and  pity  as  one  confronts  the  non-Christian 
world.     (Barrows,  I.,  362.) 

Lines  of  Approach:     Through  Social  Intercourse. 

The  endeavor  of  the  missionary,  which  should  pre- 
cede all  others,  even  that  of  preaching  the  Gospel,  is 
to  show  that,  though  a  stranger,  he  is  a  friend.  Once 
let  him  really  prove  that,  and  he  can  begin  to  work  with 
hope,  and  not  before.  This  is  because  his  is  the  re- 
ligion of  love,  and  he  need  not  expect  to  spread  that 
religion  unless  he  himself  is  loved.  .  .  .  We  have, 
indeed,  to  go  to  Asia  to  find  that  general  and  public  so- 
ciability which  has  well-nigh  departed  from  us.  In 
the  Oriental  bazaar  everyone  is  talking  to  everyone 
else,  and  perfect  strangers  meet  with  a  free  interchange 
of  civilities  and  mutual  expression  of  pleasure  at  making 
each  other's  acquaintance.  That  this  element  in 
Oriental  manners,  which  affords  complete  accessibility 
of  every  man  to  every  other,  is  an  ordering  of  God,  for 
us  to  take  advantage  of,  goes  without  saying.  Political 
opening  of  doors  into  countries  is  as  nothing  compared 
with  this  social  entrance,  which  the  missionary  can  find 
free  to  him  if  he  will  walk  therein  and  gladly  avail  him- 
self of  every  opportunity  to  meet  men  with  wise  Chris- 
tian good- will.  (Thomson,  I.,  305-307.)  A  flaunting 
of  one's  own  people  and  their  ways  as  over  against  the 


20  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

"  Effete  East "  can  never  pave  the  way  for  that  lending 
of  the  heart  to  the  power  of  the  message  which  is  the 
paramount  object,  (Oldham,  II.,  87.)  Many  a  noble 
missionary  has  been  denied  entrance  to  hearts  sorely 
needing  help  on  account  of  lack  of  what  the  world  calls 
good  breeding.  (Allen,  I.,  308.)  An  open  door  to  the 
American  missionaries  in  a  Syrian  town  was  closed  for 
eight  years  because  the  missionary  who  first  went  there 
to  live  refused,  when  calling  on  the  governor,  to  drink 
the  small  cup  of  coffee  which  Arab  etiquette  required  the 
governor  to  offer  him.  (Thomson,  I.,  306.)  The  mis- 
sionary needs  to  get  the  language,  not  only  to  give  the 
people  his  message,  but  in  order  to  get  into  the  very 
thought  and  life  of  the  people  and  learn  their  true  con- 
dition, so  that  he  may  get  down  to  their  side.  (Correll, 
I.,  318.)  If  we  are  to  reach  the  hidden  springs  of 
feeling  and  trust  which  bubble  up  silently  in  every 
human  heart,  we  must  do  it  by  a  free  use  with  the 
people  of  their  own  mother  tongue.  (Mrs.  Baird,  II., 
90.)  The  lesson  of  combining  zeal,  fervor,  and  intense 
enthusiasm  with  broad  charity  and  sanity  is  the  lesson 
that  we  all  need  to  learn.  We  must  strive  to  work  with 
and  not  against  all  who  honestly  and  in  good  faith  strive 
for  the  betterment  of  mankind.  (Theodore  Roosevelt, 
I.,  42.)  We  can  often  teach  the  women  by  showing  that 
we  are  their  friends.  (Miss  Duncan,  II.,  99.)  Moving 
the  tent  excited  curiosity  and  gave  excuse  for  talking  to 
the  women.  "  When  I  get  done  in  India,"  I  said  to  some 
drawn  in  this  way,  "  I  am  going  to  my  Father's  house, 
and  I  should  like  you  also  to  go  there.".  A  woman 
came  out  from  behind  the  crowd  and  asked :  "  Do  you 
think  your  Father  would  give  me  a  room  in  that 
house?"  "Oh,  yes,  he  sent  me  to  ask  you  to  come." 
"  My  friends,"  said  a  woman,  turning  to  those  around 
her,  "  I  believe  in  this  Saviour  of  the  world.     Since  last 


PRESENTATION    OF   THE   GOSPEL        21 

year  I  have  never  worshiped  idols."     (Mrs.  Archibald. 
II.,  102.) 

Lines  of  Approach:     Through  Meetings. 

The  term  meetings  must  be  taken  to  comprise  all 
kinds  of  meetings,  from  those  with  the  individual  in- 
quirers to  those  composed  of  large  audiences  in  buildings 
set  apart  for  the  purpose.  It  must  include  house-to- 
house  visitation,  informal  conversation  by  the  wayside, 
and  all  kinds  of  street  and  chapel  preaching.  No  evan- 
gelistic method  is  so  highly  valued  as  personal  conversa- 
tion :  nothing  else  admits  so  much  faithful  and  per- 
sistent projecting  of  oneself  upon  the  hearer;  no  other 
method  brings  the  preacher  and  the  people  so  close 
together ;  and  in  consequence  no  other  method  necessi- 
tates so  much  personal  piety  on  the  part  of  the  mis- 
sionary. (Mrs.  Baird,  II.,  91.)  Our  usual  way  to  at- 
tract the  people  was  to  walk  down  the  street.  Sometimes 
one  would  speak  to  us.  Sometimes  a  potter  at  work  in 
an  open  yard  would  give  an  excuse  for  standing  and 
talking.  Sometimes  a  tree  in  bloom  would  give  oppor- 
tunity to  ask  a  question  of  a  woman  in  a  doorway  near 
by.  Sometimes  the  sight  of  the  tent  would  set  the 
people  to  asking  questions.  Sometimes  the  presence  of 
the  missionary  alone  would  attract  large  crowds.  .  .  , 
Non-Christian  women  usually  will  not  come  to  general 
meetings.  Som.e  may  come  to  those  where  Christian 
women  attend.  But  to  reach  the  heathen  the  missionary 
must  go  to  their  houses  where  large  numbers  may  be 
collected  in  some  shady  place,  shed,  or  veranda.  (Miss 
Baskerville,  II.,  95.)  I  have  usually  taken  with  me  a 
Bible-woman  who  is  able  to  play  the  accordion,  and  by 
means  of  that  and  singing  we  gather  large  audiences  of 
women.  (Miss  Duncan,  II.,  100.)  I  do  not  favor  in- 
discriminate visiting,  but  there  is  a  harvest  in  visiting 


22  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

women  who  attend  meetings,  former  pupils,  and  other 
hom.es  into  which  an  entrance  may  be  had  in  some  legit- 
imate way.  We  should  visit  systematically,  faithfully, 
and  as  frequently  as  seems  desirable,  with  Scripture  read- 
ing and  prayer  in  every  possible  place.  (Miss  Preston, 
II.,  loi.)  An  evangelist  in  the  village  does  not  need  a 
pulpit  or  even  a  house  of  worship.  He  does  not  even 
stand  up  to  preach,  but  in  the  evenings  of  the  hot  season 
he  may  be  found  sitting  cross-legged  under  a  village  tree, 
with  possibly  a  score  of  people  around  him  asking  ques- 
tions and  often  pausing  to  discuss  some  matter  among 
themselves.  If  he  is  a  singer  he  will  probably  sing  some 
hymns  and  possibly  pray.  But  he  is  bound  by  no  fixed 
routine  and  never  loses  sight  of  his  objective  point. 
(Thoburn,  II.,  no.)  The  reward  of  this  work  of  itin- 
erating is  great.  In  one  large  village  a  mother  expressed 
regret  that  her  daughter  was  not  present,  for  she  said, 
"  After  you  went  away  from  here  last  year  she  could 
not  speak  of  anything  but  you."  And  her  sister  added, 
"  She  prayed  to  your  God  Jesus  every  night  before  she 
went  to  sleep."  (Miss  Baskerville,  II.,  95.)  I  place 
in  the  forefront  of  all  missionary  work  the  constant 
preaching  of  the  Gospel.  Not  one  woman  in  a  thousand 
in  China  can  read  a  single  letter,  and  not  more  than 
ten  per  cent,  of  the  men  have  ever  been  to  school.  How 
shall  this  great  unlettered  mass  ever  hear  of  Christ  ex- 
cept through  the  public  preaching  of  the  Gospel?  The 
street  chapel  that  I  was  in  charge  of  in  Peking  was 
open  every  day  at  twelve  o'clock  and  remained  open 
until  five  or  six.  No  fewer  than  15,000  people  have 
heard  the  Gospel  in  that  one  chapel  every  year.  A 
scene  often  witnessed  in  China  is  this :  A  foreigner  is 
preaching.  A  Chinaman  who  is  a  scholar  from  the 
country  district  comes  in.  He  listens  with  contempt 
upon  his  face;  but  as  the  missionary  proceeds,  quoting 


PRESENTATION    OF   THE   GOSPEL 


23 


from  Mencius  and  Confucius,  contempt  gives  place  to 
wonder,  and  he  is  compelled  to  say,  "  I  did  not  know 
the  foreigners  had  sense  enough  to  speak  like  that." 
Through  the  preaching  of  the  Gospel  prejudice  and 
opposition  have  largely  died  away  in  the  neighborhood 
of  the  older  stations,  and  large  numbers  of  people  have 
heard  something  of  Christ.  (Owen,  II.,  105.)  In  India 
the  ordinary  methods  of  the  missionary  will  not  effect 
the  cultured  classes.  Great  numbers  of  young  men  are 
now  pouring  forth  from  Government  schools  who  can 
speak  English.  Educated  Christian  men  should  be  in- 
duced to  go  in  numbers  to  India  to  work  among  the 
English-speaking  natives.     (Pentecost,  II.,  103.) 

Lines  of  Approach:     Through  the  Truth  Contained  in 
Non-Christian  Religions. 

The  preacher  must  avail  himself  of  all  the  truth  al- 
ready in  the  minds  of  his  non-Christian  hearers.  There 
are  not  two  sources  of  truth  but  one.  Every  grain  of 
truth  in  the  mind  of  the  hearer  unacknowledged  by  the 
preacher  is  a  mountain  obstacle  against  his  usefulness. 
(Oldham,  II.,  86.)  Every  fragment  of  truth  imbedded 
in  those  erring  and  imperfect  religions,  every  germ  of 
spiritual  insight  however  distorted,  every  motive  of 
moral  origin  however  misguided  in  operation,  every 
yearning  proper  to  the  human  heart  however  faint  and 
uncertain,  the  Son  of  Man  regards  as  part  of  the  in- 
heritance to  be  rescued,  conserved,  purified,  and  per- 
fected in  Himself.  .  .  .  There  is  a  law  in  the  mind 
and  conscience  of  those  who  are  without  the  written 
revelation;  and  there  are  prophecies  lurking  in  their 
rites,  their  traditions,  and  their  prayers.  .  .  ,  Behind 
all  non-Christian  religions  are  the  worshipers ;  they  are 
the  men  and  the  women  for  whom  the  Son  of  Man 
laid  down  his  life;  the  erring  forms  of  belief  and  wor- 


24 


PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 


ship  that  intervene  between  him  and  them  can  not 
impede  the  outgoing  of  his  love  to  seek  for  them 
deliverance  into  the  liberty  of  God's  children.  (Robson, 
I.,  367.)  The  true  conception  of  these  non-Christian 
religions  seems  to  be  this :  That  originally  they  had 
more  or  less  revealed  truth  in  them,  but  as  time  went 
on  they  lost  much  of  this  pristine  excellence,  and  so,  as 
we  find  them  to-day,  they  present  a  sad  mixture  of  a 
little  truth  and  much  error.  Yet  the  fact  that  they  have 
some  truth  in  them  indicates  the  way  of  approach  to 
those  who  hold  these  faiths,  viz. :  by  the  truths  we  have 
in  common.  (Jackson,  I.,  362.)  And  so,  recognizing 
that  Truth  of  God  which  has  lighted  men  in  all  the  cen- 
turies past,  we  yet  proclaim  that  the  people  of  China,  as 
the  people  of  Korea  and  Japan,  need  that  supreme  reve- 
lation in  Jesus  Christ,  not  of  an  impersonal  principle  and 
force,  but  of  the  Son  of  the  living  God.  (Knox,  I.,  392.) 
Missionaries  are  keenly  alive  to  the  fact  that  some  of  the 
non-Christian  faiths  are  keeping  their  place  in  the  world 
because  they  minister  in  a  measure  to  some  of  the  needs 
of  the  human  heart.  They  are  preserved  from  utter 
condemnation  by  the  great  truths,  which  amid  all  errors 
and  perversions,  they  undoubtedly  contain.  (Barrows, 
I.,  358.)  It  is  important  for  a  missionary  to  Muslims  to 
know  the  Koran  well ;  not  merely  at  second-hand,  but 
so  as  to  be  able  to  quote  accurately  the  more  important 
passages  bearing  on  his  work.  Not  only  does  it  con- 
ciliate the  Mohammedan,  by  showing  him  that  the  mis- 
sionary has  at  least  done  him  the  justice  of  studying 
his  sacred  book,  but  often  a  captious  critic  is  silenced  by 
an  apt  quotation.  (Wilson,  I.,  396.) 
Lines  of  Approach:  Through  Direct  Preaching  of  the 
Gospel  as  the  Power  of  God  unto  Salvation,  Satisfy- 
ing the  Universal  Need. 
To  place  Christ  before  paganism  in  his  completeness 


PRESENTATION    OF   THE   GOSPEL        25 

as  the  Bible  reveals  him  is  perhaps  the  best  of  all  ways 
of  meeting  the  doubts  of  both  pagan  and  Christian  in- 
quirers. (Purves,  I.,  ZT7-)  One  does  not  have  to  work 
very  long  among  the  heathen  to  realize  very  clearly  that 
the  Gospel  is  meant  for  them.  (Miss  Budden,  II.,  249.) 
The  theme  of  the  evangelist  is  Christ,  and  power  attends 
his  word.  Evangelists  preach  Christ  with  power  sent 
down  from  heaven.  (Thoburn,  II.,  107.)  Jesus  satisfies 
the  heart  hunger.  Human  nature  is  the  same  every- 
where. Christ  is  a  world  Saviour.  (Vance,  I.,  86.) 
All  should  study  the  Bible  with  reference  to  the  soul 
needs  of  others,  and  expect  to  wing  their  shafts  entirely 
from  its  pages.  (Mrs.  Baird,  XL,  90.)  There  is  no 
more  delicate  or  discriminating  task  before  the  Gospel 
preacher  than  that  of  suiting  his  methods  and  his  mes- 
sage to  the  differing  aptitudes  and  wants  of  his  hearers. 
Preaching  to  a  South  Sea  Island  congregation  must 
necessarily  be  very  different  from  that  to  a  Hindu 
audience,  or  to  keen,  rationalistic  Japanese  hearers. 
(Oldham,  II.,  85-86.)  The  preaching  of  the  truth 
clearly  and  simply  is  of  the  utmost  importance.  There 
should  be  frequent  repetition  until  there  is  intelligent 
understanding.  (Miss  Preston,  II.,  100.)  No  matter 
how  we  introduce  it  the  Gospel  message  must  be  pre- 
sented as  simply,  earnestly,  and  convincingly  as  possible. 
The  women  know  that  in  order  to  be  taught  to  read  they 
must  take  the  Scripture  lessons  and  learn  to  read  the 
Bible.  Oftentimes  the  most  bigoted  women  become  at 
last  the  most  earnest  students  of  the  Bible.  Oral  les- 
sons will  need  to  be  given  first.  But  as  there  is  a  power 
in  the  beautiful  words  of  the  Bible,  if  the  attention  of 
the  women  can  be  gained  while  we  read,  reading  is 
preferable  to  wholly  telling  the  story  ourselves.  Pic- 
tures will  be  found  to  be  a  great  aid  in  teaching.  (Miss 
Duncan,  II.,  99-100.)     The  missionary  should  stoop  to 


26  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

fill  the  simplest  words  with  the  deepest  thoughts. 
(Edmonds,  II.,  26.)  The  experience  of  Henry  Richards 
in  Africa  is  instructive.  His  field  was  entirely  new. 
While  feeling  his  way  into  the  knowledge  of  the  lan- 
guage, he  began  to  translate  and  give  the  people  verses 
from  the  Bible.  It  seemed  necessary  to  teach  them  the 
Old  Testament;  that  God  is  the  Creator;  that  He  is 
good;  and  that  they  were  sinners.  He  went  on  in  this 
way,  but  they  would  not  acknowledge  that  God  is  good, 
nor  that  they  were  sinners.  He  continued  teaching  for  six 
and  one-half  years  and  there  were  no  Christians.  When 
he  told  them  that  they  were  sinners  he  had  to  use  a  word 
meaning  "bad  people."  They  were  very  angry.  They 
seemed  to  have  no  conscience  of  sin.  He  began  to  trans- 
late the  Gospel  of  Luke  and  immediately  the  people 
became  interested,  and  finally  he  says :  "  Work  on  the 
Word  of  God  went  on  until  I  came  to  the  crucifixion; 
then  the  climax  occurred,  when  I  told  them  *  You  say 
you  are  not  sinners.  There  is  Jesus  dying  for  you. 
He  never  did  anything  wrong,  but  he  dies  for  your  sins 
and  mine.'  Then  I  could  see  that  the  Holy  Spirit  was 
convincing  them."  (Richards,  TL,  93.)  It  is  a  common 
saying  among  the  people  of  Satara,  with  reference  to 
the  preaching,  that  wherever  the  preacher  may  begin, 
he  always  ends  with  Jesus  Christ.     (Bruce,  II.,  66.) 

Development  of  the  Native  Church  in  Spiritual  Life. 

The  Foreign  missionary  has  a  double  duty:  First  to 
evangelize  the  heathen,  and  second  to  build  up  the 
Christian  character  of  the  converts.  The  building  up  of 
the  Christian  character  is  of  the  utmost  importance, 
and  its  results  will  tell  and  continue  to  influence  the 
world  when  the  voice  of  the  evangelist  is  silenced  by 
death.  It  is  almost  impossible  to  describe  the  value  of  a 
living  church.    The  converts  gathered  in  are  to  become 


PRESENTATION    OF   THE   GOSPEL        27 

the  instrument  of  evangelistic  work,  the  vessel  filled 
with  the  Gospel  treasure,  and  the  temple  of  the  Holy 
Spirit.  The  Church  must  realize  that  it  is  a  part  of 
the  most  sacred  body  of  Christ.  It  must  present  a 
strong  and  positive  testimony  to  the  world.  An  ideal 
church  will  stand  as  an  uncompromising  witness 
against  sin,  with  a  spirit  of  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness ;  with  a  heart  of  love,  throbbing  with  the 
sympathetic  mind  and  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ ;  a  living 
power  to  help  in  all  good  work.  When  we  attempt  to 
edify  and  strengthen  the  small  society  of  converts  gath- 
ered at  any  mission  station,  we  find  the  work  difficult 
and  progress  slow.  (Galpin,  II.,  273.)  After  experi- 
ence the  missionary  finds  that  a  process,  not  a  single 
act,  is  what  demands  his  devotion.  His  work  for  the 
moral  culture  of  men,  like  that  of  the  Apostle  Paul, 
is  but  begun  when  they  have  believed.  The  moral  sense 
must  be  cultivated  continuously.  (D wight,  II.,  60.) 
The  character  of  the  churches  in  India,  China,  and  other 
lands  will  depend  very  largely  upon  the  spiritual  life  and 
devotion  of  the  native  ministry ;  and  the  number  and 
the  efficiency  of  the  ministry  will  in  turn  depend  upon 
the  spirituality  of  the  membership,  and  that  again  upon 
the  care  taken  in  receiving  members  into  the  churches. 
The  note  which  ran  throughout  all  the  preaching  and 
teaching  of  our  Lord  and  his  apostles  was  the  "  new 
birth,"  the  "  new  life,"  and  the  "  new  man."  This  is  the 
dominant  thought  voiced  by  Peter  on  the  Day  of  Pente- 
cost and  echoed  by  John  in  the  Revelation.  The  pur- 
poses of  the  Church's  existence  indicate  the  character  of 
its  membership.  It  is  to  exhibit  to  the  heavenly  powers 
and  intelligences  through  all  ages  the  manifold  wisdom 
of  God,  to  show  forth  to  all  men  the  excellencies  of 
Christ  Jesus  our  Lord,  his  power,  his  wisdom,  his 
righteousness,  his  grace,  and  love.    All  this  can  be  predi- 


28  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

cated  of  but  one  class  of  people,  namely,  regenerated 
ones.  .  .  .  How  necessary  that  they  should  be  ro- 
bust, self-reliant,  pure,  and  full  of  abounding  spiritual 
life.  Discipline  is  an  education,  a  process  of  training 
for  the  unruly  in  the  school  of  Christ.  It  is  also  a 
vindication  of  the  character  of  God  and  his  Church : 
"  Come  out  from  among  them  and  be  ye  separate,  saith 
the  Lord,  and  touch  not  the  unclean  thing;  and  I  will 
receive  you,  and  will  be  a  father  unto  you,  and  ye  shall 
be  my  sons  and  daughters."  (McLaurin,  II.,  275-277.) 
The  first  great  thing  is  to  bring  them  closer  to  the 
blessed  Lord,  to  develop  and  deepen  within  them  the 
Christian  life,  the  power  of  the  Gospel  within  the  soul, 
which  is  the  great  power  of  all  Christian  effort.  Then, 
there  is  the  course  of  study  in  different  directions :  The 
ten  commandments,  the  life  of  Christ,  Bible  drill,  and 
class  instruction  and  conference,  taking  each  man  and 
getting  him  to  report  to  others  his  experiences,  and 
conferring  personally  with  the  men,  who  are  doing  the 
work,  in  all  the  points  which  relate  to  their  daily  ex- 
perience.    (Wynkoop,  II.,  270-271.) 

Development  of  the  Native  Church  as  an  Evangelistic 
Force. 

Every  missionary  wherever  his  work,  being  essentially 
an  evangelist,  the  scope  of  his  work  will  be  measured  by 
his  ability  to  multiply  himself  by  the  native  evangelists 
he  finds,  trains,  and  guides.  In  this  ability,  or  the  lack 
of  it,  more  than  anywhere  else  is  the  difference  between 
small  and  great  missionaries.  (Chester,  II.,  255.)  This 
work  is  one  of  the  most  important  that  can  fall  to  the 
lot  of  the  missionary,  and  it  calls  for  infinite  patience, 
tact,  skill,  and  grace.  The  missionary  may  be  led  into 
the  error  of  so  vigilantly  overseeing  and  controlling 
every  detail  of  the  work,  as  to  leave  little  scope  for  the 


PRESENTATION    OF   THE    GOSPEL        29 

{Icvclopincnt  of  iiidividnal  character  in  the  workers, 
making  them  either  restless  and  dissatisfied,  or  so  de- 
pendent as  to  be  useless  without  her  support.  But  with 
judicial  guidance  and  wise  counsel  the  worker  may  be 
led  on  step  by  step  in  the  performance  of  Christian 
duties,  doubtless  often  trying  the  patience  of  the  mis- 
sionary, but  just  as  often  developing  unsuspected  ability, 
and  filling  a  sphere  of  usefulness  among  her  own  people 
to  which  no  foreigner  could  ever  attain.  (Miss  Belton, 
II.,  266.)  We  are  merely  starting  the  work  which  the 
natives  must  carry  on,  and  we  must  continually  try  to 
prepare  them  for  that  responsibility.  Leave  the  work 
in  their  hands,  let  them  have  as  much  of  the  counseling 
as  possible.  (Haskell,  II.,  265.)  One  of  my  missionary 
fathers  continually  lectured  me  on  the  point  of  develop- 
ing responsibility.  Up  to  the  time  that  he  came  to  our 
mission  all  the  native  people  were  accustomed  to  ask 
the  missionaries  about  everything.  He  astonished  them 
greatly  after  he  came  there  by  refusing  point  blank  to 
advise  them.  He  would  simply  tell  them  the  principles 
are  so  and  so ;  it  is  your  business  to  decide,  and  it  is 
very  much  better  for  you  that  you  should  decide.  (San- 
ders, II.,  259.)  We  are  doing  our  best  to  train  one 
man  in  each  village  religiously  as  a  leader  for  his  own 
village.  These  men  can  not  read  or  write,  but  they  are 
taught  to  sing  and  pray,  and  tell  of  the  love  of  Jesus. 
The  work  of  this  leader  is  to  hold  prayers  with  the 
Christians  and  inquirers  in  his  own  circle.  These  lead- 
ers are,  of  course,  all  unpaid  workers,  but  the  training 
of  such  for  this  special  work  is  doing  great  good, 
(Parker,  II.,  264.)  The  training  and  teaching  of  cate- 
chists  form  now  an  essential  part  of  all  missionary 
work.  No  lay  evangelist  should  be  permanently  ap- 
pointed until  he  has  undergone  some  course  of  training. 
(Hackett,  II.,  253.)     How  shall  we  manage  so  that  we 


30  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

may  have  this  financial  question  out  of  the  way,  and 
get  into  new  relation  to  our  native  Christians?  Abso- 
lutely no  question  of  finances  and  no  question  of  superior 
power  and  executive  ability  of  the  foreign  missionary 
should  for  one  instant  be  allowed  to  come  in  between 
us  and  this  tremendous  purpose  for  which  we  are  sent 
forth,  to  make  men.     (Ewing.  IT.,  254.) 


PHILANTHROPE    IN    MISSIONS  31 


STUDY  III. 
MEDICAL  WORK. 

The  Need. 

Think  of  millions  of  men,  in  the  far  outposts  of 
progress,  surrounded  only  by  superstition,  who  are 
keenly  sensitive  to  pain,  who  have  no  knowledge  of  any 
power  or  any  opportunity  of  relief;  and  who,  when 
pain  touches  them  with  its  iron  grasp,  must  needs  lie 
helpless  and  struggle  in  fearful  agony,  until  the  pain 
has  spent  itself  or  is  forever  stilled  in  the  touch  of  death  ! 
When  a  medical  man  comes  with  his  fine  science 
amongst  these  people,  he  seems  to  come  as  a  worker  of 
miracles.  He  opens  up  a  new  realm-,  he  breaks  down 
the  doors  of  superstition.  So  he  is  often  the  first  herald 
of  the  Cross  in  the  places  of  pioneer  mission  work 
throughout  the  world.  (Lynch,  II.,  188.)  Those  living 
in  Christian  lands  can  have  little  conception  of  the 
extent  and  power  of  quackery  in  the  unevangelized 
world.  Among  the  lower  types  of  humanity  in  Africa, 
Polynesia,  and  aboriginal  America,  religion  is  quackery. 
The  abject  fear  of  the  unknown  on  the  side  of  the 
people,  and  the  devilish  cunning  and  malice  of  the  sor- 
cerers and  the  medicine  men  or  witch  doctors  on  the 
other,  have  given  to  the  latter  an  incredible  power  for 
evil.  Medical  missions  break  the  power  and  destroy  the 
prestige  of  the  medicine-men  and  witch  doctors.  They 
teach  the  true  nature  of  disease  and  death,  and  their  in- 
dependence of  the  malignant  spirits  which  are  supposed 
to  be  their  causes.  They  urge  the  use  of  the  means 
which  God  has  given  to  men  to  cure  the  one  and  ward 
off  the  other.     (Post,  IL,   196-197.)     There  are  in  the 


32  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

world  something  over  5,000  Protestant  mission  stations. 
There  are  in  each  station  an  average,  I  presume,  of  at 
least  200,000  people,  to  whom  that  mission  station  must 
minister  in  all  things  spiritual  and  medical.  Six  hun- 
dred and  fifty  medical  missionaries  are  scattered  among 
5,000  mission  stations.  That  gives  you  the  amount  of 
work  which  the  medical  missionary  is  expected  to 
do.  (Dr.  Grace  Kimball,  II.,  199.)  The  supply  of 
medical  missionaries  is  unhappily  only  too  small,  and  in 
many  parts  of  the  world  in  which  missionaries  are  work- 
ing there  is  no  possibility  of  securing  qualified  medical 
help  for  themselves  or  their  families.  (Battersby,  II., 
209.)  In  India,  you  know,  the  work  is  only  limited  by 
the  doctor's  strength.  If  you  could  work  every  minute 
of  the  twenty-four  hours,  and  then  add  twenty-four 
hours  more  to  the  day,  you  could  not  get  through  with 
the  work  that  would  come  to  you  to  do.  (Levering,  II., 
216.)  If  any  of  you  have  ever  had  the  experience  that 
I  have  had,  of  treating  8,000  patients  a  year,  with  20,000 
prescriptions  to  fill,  you  will  then  deem  it  a  blessing  that 
there  is  a  school  for  training  druggists,  nurses,  and 
doctors.  (Bryan,  II.,  221.)  In  a  country  where  women 
are  not  honored,  they  are  left  to  suffer  untold  miseries. 
In  China  there  are  women  who  would  rather  disease 
should  run  its  course  than  call  a  man  to  treat  them. 
(Johnson,  II.,  223.)  For  this  reason  a  woman  physician 
is  welcomed  most  cordially.  They  tell  her  what  they 
will  tell  nobody  else  in  all  the  world,  of  their  sorrows 
and  pains,  and  they  will  allow  her  to  do  what  they  will 
allow  nobody  else;  they  will  listen  to  the  Gospel  from 
her.  Think  of  going  into  a  one-room  mud  hut  without 
any  furniture,  and  trying  to  perform  an  operation,  and 
then  compare  that  with  the  same  operation  performed 
in  a  place  fitted  up  as  a  hospital.  (Levering,  II.,  190.) 
The  hospital  is  a  perfect  heaven  compared  with  their 


MEDICAL   WORK 


33 


own  homes  and  the  nurses  are  very  angels  in  the  sight 
of  the  Arabs  and  Jews.     (Torrance,  I.,  446.) 

Most    Immediate    and    Iniluential    Means    of    Gaining 
Access  to  All  Classes. 

A  doctor  may  live  in  security  among  robbers  and 
thugs.  He  can  visit  districts  closed  to  all  others.  He  is 
called  to  the  inmost  recesses  of  the  harem  and  the 
zenana.  He  is  the  welcome  guest  in  the  house  of  Jew- 
ish rabbis,  of  Mohammedan  ulema,  of  Hindu  and  Bud- 
dhist priests.  He  is  regarded  as  a  guardian  angel  by 
the  poor,  and  he  stands  as  an  equal  before  kings  and 
rulers.  (Post,  II.,  196.)  Curiously  enough  the  princi- 
ple of  attracting  the  regard  of  the  people  by  medical 
work  was  used  by  the  French  Government  on  entering 
Madagascar  and  finding  itself  confronted  by  the  turbu- 
lent hate  of  its  people.  (Cousins,  II.,  198.)  At  Tiberias 
the  people  came  when  they  heard  that  an  English  doctor 
had  arrived,  for  there  was  no  skilled  medical  aid.  But 
the  moment  the  Gospel  was  preached  bans  of  excom- 
munication were  issued  from  the  synagogues  against  any 
who  had  relations  with  the  missionary.  But  the  Jewish 
mothers  love  their  children.  In  spite  of  the  ban  they 
brought  their  children  to  the  doctor.  Before  long  the 
Rabbi's  daughter  and  finally  the  Rabbi  himself  became 
sick.  He  had  to  appeal  to  the  missionary  and  the 
Medical  Mission  was  thenceforth  established  in  its  in- 
fluence. (Torrance,  I.,  445.)  A  woman  in  Africa  was 
carried  a  cripple  to  the  mission  station  and  went  back 
to  her  home  cured  after  four  months,  passing  through 
a  tribe  which  had  always  refused  to  receive  missionaries. 
She  said  to  these  people,  "  We  have  not  understood  the 
people  at  God's  station.  They  are  for  our  good.  See  me. 
I  was  carried;  now  I  walk."  And  from  that  time  every 
door    in    that    district    was    open    to    the    missionary. 


34  PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS 

(Lynch.  II.,  i88.)  In  1884  Dr.  H.  N.  Allen  successfully 
treated  the  wounded  prince,  Min  Yong  Ik,  in  Korea. 
This  secured  to  him  personally  that  royal  favor  which 
has  been  ever  since  extended  to  his  colleagues  and  suc- 
cessors.    (Avison,  I.,  537.) 

Hospitals,   Dispensaries,    and    Visiting. 

Medical  work  in  missions  should  be  done  through 
both  hospital  and  dispensary,  and  this,  as  a  rule,  from 
the  beginning.  The  dispensary  from  a  missionary  stand- 
point is  like  a  street  chapel.  It  has  the  advantage  of  a 
more  regular  audience  and  of  favor  and  good-will  gained 
by  the  medical  work.  But,  as  in  the  case  of  a  street 
chapel,  its  audience  is  constantly  changing.  Many  come 
but  once,  and  these  are  liable  to  get  an  inadequate  idea 
of  the  Gospel  message  presented  to  them.  By  means  of 
a  dispensary  much  seed-sowing  can  be  done,  and  it 
serves  admirably  to  advertise  Christian  work ;  it  is  possi- 
ble through  the  dispensary  to  distribute  large  numbers 
of  tracts  and  portions  of  the  Scripture.  A  hospital  is 
naturally  required  to  complete  the  work  begun,  and  it  is 
in  the  wards  and  regular  daily  services  of  the  hospital 
that  the  Gospel  is  made  plain.  The  hospital  affords 
time,  under  most  favorable  circumstances,  for  leading 
men  to  Christ.  (Beebe,  II.,  211.)  At  the  dispensary 
the  cards  given  to  the  patients,  with  their  number  on, 
have  printed  on  the  back  a  concise  statement  of  Chris- 
tianity. The  carrying  out  of  the  missionary  idea  in 
dispensary  or  hospital  does  not  militate  against  the  re- 
ception of  the  missionary  physician  by  the  heathen,  or 
prevent  them  from  coming  to  him  for  medical  aid. 
"  We  will  wait  for  the  reading  and  the  prayer,"  said 
three  Brahmans,  "  though  we  be  not  of  your  religion  we 
believe  that  your  prayers  are  heard."  (Chamberlain, 
II.,  203.)     An  important  feature  of  hospital  work  is  the 


MEDICAL   WORK  35 

following  up  of  the  interest  excited,  making  the  most 
of  the  access  to  the  hearts  of  the  patients.  A  plan  of 
giving  the  history  of  each  patient  from  country  districts 
to  the  missionary  residing  there  would  increase  many 
fold  the  efficiency  of  the  hospital  as  an  evangelistic 
agency.  (Beebe,  II.,  214.)  The  woman  trained  nurse 
must  do  the  work  of  a  deaconess  also,  as  she  has  a 
field  unequaled  for  religious  work.  I  think  there  is 
no  more  valuable  worker  to  be  found  on  the  mission 
field.  (Beebe,  II.,  213.)  The  root  of  China's  redemption 
must  be  in  her  home  life.  But  the  minister  can  not  enter 
that  secluded  circle.  The  woman  physician,  however, 
can  penetrate  the  furthest  corner  of  her  sister's  seclusion. 
The  work  of  a  woman  physician  often  brings  her  into 
positions  of  prominence  and  authority  which  heathen- 
ism has  never  dreamed  of  as  belonging  to  any  but  a 
man.     (Dr.  Rachel  Benn,  II,,  193.) 

The  Missionary  Physician. 

All  other  questions  relating  to  hospitals  and  dispen- 
saries in  mission  stations  are  subordinate  to  the  one 
relating  to  the  physician  who  serves  them ;  for  on  his 
character  and  spirit  depends  the  success  or  failure  of  the 
work.  The  missionary  physician  should  have  a  thor- 
ough professional  training,  and  as  much  hospital  experi- 
ence as  possible  before  going  to  the  field.  (Beebe,  II., 
212.)  Nothing  will  take  the  place  of  love  for  preaching 
the  Gospel,  as  the  first  requisite  for  Christ's  laborers. 
Yet  to  make  that  love  effective  one  of  the  greatest 
helps  is  a  vast  possession  of  modern  medical  science, 
(Thomson,  I.,  308,)  A  Christian  physician's  duty  is 
to  maintain  his  power  to  the  highest  degree  of  which  he 
is  capable,  and  to  use  his  skill  with  single-heartedness 
for  the  benefit  of  the  physical  welfare  of  his  patients. 
Do  work  only  in  the  area  which  you  can  cover.    Do  it 


36  PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS 

well,  do  it  scientifically,  get  good  medical  results,  and 
the  kingdom  of  God  will  get  the  glory.  The  missionary 
physician  preaches  Christ  without  opening  his  lips.  To 
everyone  of  his  patients  to  whom  he  comes  with  loving 
sympathy  and  with  skillful  power,  he  brings  the  message 
of  the  love  of  God.  (Kimball,  II.,  200.)  The  medical 
missionary  should  avoid  undertaking  too  much,  both  in 
seeing  too  many  patients  and  in  trying  to  do  everything 
himself.  (Torrance,  II.,  215.)  He  must  not  allow  his 
work  as  physician  to  crowd  upon  his  work  for  souls ; 
else  he  will  miss  his  object  besides  starving  his  own 
soul.  (Dr.  May  Carleton,  II.,  216.)  His  qualifications 
are  first,  spiritual — of  which  the  chief  is  love,  second, 
professional — ^being  the  best  medical  trainin.o:  possible, 
and  third,  personal — including  good  mind,  good  health, 
good  fellowship,  and  good  judgment.  (Taylor,  II.,  205.) 
He  should  be  thoroughly  taught  and  well  equipped,  and 
his  work  should  include  care  of  the  health  of  his  asso- 
ciates and  a  study  of  the  hygienic  conditions  of  his  field. 
Experience  in  the  sacred  privilege  of  soul  winning  and 
the  power  and  knowledge  to  point  clearly  the  way  to 
everlasting  life  should  be  regarded  as  indispensable. 
(Battersby,  II.,  208.)  The  medical  missionary  should 
undertake  this  work  with  a  definite  sense  of  obligation 
and  consecration,  and  a  clear  conception  of  duty  and 
privilege,  so  that  he  will  give  his  life  and  energies  in  full 
surrender  to  the  Lord  for  joyful  service.  (Beebe,  11., 
212.) 

Motive  and   Opportunity  of  the  Missionary  Physician. 

The  ministry  of  healing  has  a  motive  and  an  end  in 
itself,  and,  to  be  effective  as  an  evangelistic  agency,  must 
be  given  as  a  brotherly  service,  unencumbered  by  any 
condition  as  to  religious  teaching,  even  as  Christ  ren- 
dered it.     But  the  ministry  of  healing  has  also  a  motive 


MEDICAL   WORK 


37 


and  an  end  above  itself,  which  raises  it  to  the  highest 
plane  of  Christian  service.  This  motive  and  end  are  the 
saving  of  the  soul  from  sin  and  death.  There  is  a 
pecuHar  appropriateness  in  the  association  of  bodily  and 
spiritual  healing.  During  sickness  the  soul  is  usually 
open  to  conviction  of  sin,  and,  after  the  restoration  to 
health,  often  strongly  moved  by  gratitude  to  God. 
The  physician  who  has  given  his  knowledge  and 
strength  to  the  sick  man  has  a  special  right  to  speak 
to  him  on  the  state  of  his  soul,  and  the  patient  will  listen 
to  him  with  a  confidence  and  affection  which  he  can 
have  for  no  other  man.  If  the  doctor  is  filled  with  love 
for  souls,  and  has  the  gift  of  utterance,  he  can  never 
fail  for  illustrations  to  enforce  his  appeal.  And  if  he 
have  the  gift  of  healing,  but  not  of  teaching  or  exhorta- 
tion, his  brother  missionary  stands  upon  the  vantage 
ground  won  by  the  doctor's  skill  and  devotion,  from 
which  to  reach  and  capture  the  healed  man  for  Christ. 
(Post,  II.,  198.)  It  is  an  egregious  mistake  to  suppose 
that  to  open  doors  that  the  Gospel  may  follow  is  the 
province  of  medicine.  The  physician,  especially  the 
woman  physician,  does  open  doors  indeed,  but  she  walks 
through  them  herself  into  the  most  inaccessible  strong- 
hold of  heathenism — the  home — taking  the  Gospel  with 
her.  (Rachel  Benn,  II.,  192.)  The  woman  physician's 
work  is  that  individual  personal  work  which  is  con- 
verting the  world.  The  pathos  of  Chinese  woman's  life 
as  seen  by  the  woman  physician  would  eat  her  heart  out 
were  it  not  for  the  hope  of  changing  its  sorrow  to  joy. 
A  question  to  the  doctor  as  to  the  time  of  the  next 
visit  leads  to  the  mention  of  Sunday,  and  that  brings  in 
instruction  about  the  Creator,  the  Creation,  and  the 
Sabbath.  The  healing  of  a  desperate  illness  gives  op- 
portunity to  speak  of  God  who  has  blessed  the  means 
used  to  save  life,  and  of  Christ  who  came  to  help  the 


38  PHILANTHROPY   IN    MISSIONS 

suffering   and    to   teach    of   the    Father's    love   to   all. 
(Rachel  Benn,  IL,  194.) 

Medical  Training  of  Natives. 

The  necessity  for  native  assistants  is  felt  by  every 
medical  missionary.  Such  assistants  must  prepare  and 
dispense  drugs,  or  must  be  able  to  assist  in  the  serious 
surgical  operations  of  the  hospital,  and  aid  in  the  after 
treatment  and  nursing  which  is  as  essential  to  success 
as  the  operation  itself.  Native  assistants  in  the  hospital 
should  be  Christians,  alive  to  the  spirit  and  purpose  of 
missionary  work.  When  imbued  with  the  proper  spirit 
and  possessed  of  a  high  degree  of  intelligence  they  are 
invaluable  to  the  work.  (Beebe,  IL,  213.)  A  plain, 
practical,  and  somewhat  empirical  education  is  the  best 
for  an  undeveloped  state  of  society,  teaching  the  best 
uses  of  the  imperfect  equipment,  the  rude  surroundings 
which  they  have.  So  my  recommendation  is  for  what 
we  would  now  call  an  old-fashioned  education  for  our 
medical  students.  Considerable  attention  should  be 
given  to  practical  pharmacology.  The  materia  mcdica 
of  the  country  should  be  studied  by  scientific  methods. 
This  leads  to  the  thought  of  using  on  principle  the 
coarser  and  cheaper  forms  of  drugs.  (Peck,  IL,  229.) 
A  medical  school,  or  a  training-class  connected  with 
the  mission  hospital,  multiplies  through  its  graduates  the 
influence  of  the  work  of  the  medical  missionary;  it  ac- 
complishes for  humanity  a  mission  in  harmony  with 
Christ's  example  and  commands ;  it  encourages  the 
broad  interests  of  Christian  education,  deepens  a  spirit 
of  benevolence  in  a  community,  raises  up  an  influential 
profession  whose  members  will  effectively  co-operate 
with  Christian  pastors  and  evangelists  in  the  work  of 
the  Church,  and  it  encourages  a  spirit  of  responsibility 
for  the  support  of  Christian  institutions.     (Berry,  XL, 


MEDICAL   WORK 


39 


225-226.)  Broadly  speaking,  if  we  recognize  the  value 
of  the  medical  profession  as  a  social  factor  in  our 
own  civilization,  we  shall  be  ready  to  see  tne  importance 
of  such  an  element  in  the  infusion  of  a  new  life  into  the 
effete  civilization  of  the  East.  To  the  reflecting  mind  it 
will  seem  to  be  a  religious  duty  to  assist  in  the  formation 
of  such  a  useful  class  in  the  communities  where  we  arc 
trying  to  build  up  a  Christian  civilization.  (Peck,  II., 
228.)  There  can  be  little  doubt  but  that  in  the  vast 
majority  of  cases  the  training  should  take  place  in  the 
country  itself,  both  on  the  ground  of  expense  and  prob- 
able influence  on  character  and  mode  of  life.  (Fry,  II., 
218.)  Where  medical  schools  are  already  supported  by 
the  State,  but  dominated  by  infidelity,  missionaries 
should  unite  to  establish  a  medical  school  under  Chris- 
tian auspices  second  to  none  in  the  practice  of  medicine. 
(Berry,  II.,  226.)  A  Christian  medical  school  should  be 
established  in  Korea  at  once.  Then  when  the  Govern- 
ment establishes  its  schools  the  only  men  whom  it  can 
get  to  teach  in  them  will  be  Christian  doctors.  (Avison, 
II.,  224.)  A  plan  was  followed  in  Japan  for  aiding  na- 
tive physicians  already  in  practice  to  improve  their  medi- 
cal knowledge.  The  native  physicians  were  organized 
into  groups  and  once  a  month  each  group  met  at  some 
central  place  to  submit  their  difficult  cases  to  the  mis- 
sionary physician.  After  opening  the  exercises  with  a 
religious  service  each  case  was  examined  in  the  presence 
of  all  the  physicians  and  suggestions  were  made  for 
treatment,  the  physicians  taking  notes  which  they  could 
study  at  leisure.  Several  of  those  who  attended  early 
accepted  the  Christian  faith.  (Berry,  II.,  226.)  At 
Travancore  they  used  to  select  a  few  young  men,  church 
members  tested  in  mission  work  and  sufficiently 
grounded  in  English  to  study  in  that  language.  Their 
instruction  consisted  in  work  in  the  hospital,  assisting 


40  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

at  operations,  attending  systematic  lectures,  and  the 
study  of  anatomical  diagrams  and  models.  A  Bible 
class  was  regularly  held,  and  every  day  one  of  the  stu- 
dents addressed  the  assembled  patients,  and  on  Sunday 
they  went  by  twos  to  heathen  towns  and  in  villages  and 
in  other  ways  were  encouraged  to  combine  spiritual  and 
medical  work.  The  result  has  been  to  supply  the  Cen- 
tral Hospital  and  thirteen  branch  dispensaries  with  ca- 
pable men,  and  in  all  of  these  places  the  evangelistic 
work  goes  on  along  with  the  healing  of  the  sick.  The 
influence  of  the  medical  mission  is  thus  multiplied. 
(Fry,  II.,  218.) 


PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS  41 


STUDY  IV. 

LITERARY  WORK. 

Bible  Translation. 

The  nineteenth  century  presents  to  the  twentieth 
printed  copies  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  about  four  hun- 
dred languages  as  a  part  of  the  equipment  with  which 
the  work  of  evangelization  is  to  be  carried  on.  (Gilman, 
IL,  32-36.)  Each  Bible  translation  bears  witness  to  the 
love  that  God  hath  to  us,  and  each  bears  witness  also 
that  no  race  or  language  is  now  common  or  unclean. 
(Edmonds,  IL,  15.)  Out  of  the  translations  of  the 
Scriptures  now  existent  in  living  tongues,  no  fewer  than 
219  have  been  made  in  languages  which  have  been  re- 
duced to  writing  for  the  purpose  within  the  nineteenth 
century.  With  the  Bible  printed  in  the  common  tongue 
literature  and  education  become  possible  amongst  the 
people  for  whom  the  translation  was  made.  Who  can 
tell  the  importance  and  the  worth  of  Bible  translation 
which  thus  starts  so  many  languages  upon  their  literary 
career!     (Thomas,  IL,  23.) 

Example  of  the  Early  Church. 

From  whichever  of  the  great  missionary  centers  we 
start,  from  Antioch,  from  Alexandria,  from  Carthage, 
or  from  Constantinople,  the  footprints  of  the  translator 
of  the  Bible  are  there,  beautiful  are  their  feet,  and  their 
footsteps  are  not  only  beautiful,  but  indelible.  Whatever 
else  was  done,  or  not  done,  this  branch  of  the  ministry 
of  truth  was  never  neglected  in  the  early  Church.  There 
are  instances  in  the  work  of  the  early  Church  as  well 
as  in  the  modern  Church  where  the  best  of  books  was 
the  first  of  books,  where  the  very  alphabet  was  con- 


42  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

structed  for  the  purpose  of  translating  the  Bible  into 
the  people's  language. 

The  greatest  but  one  of  the  early  mission  fields  was 
the  Syriac-speaking  land  that  stretched  out  east  from 
Antioch.  Syriac  was  for  seven  or  eight  centuries  the 
chief  literary  instrument  in  Western  Asia.  It  was  the 
official  language  of  the  great  kingdom  of  the  Seleucidae. 
The  cities  spoke  Greek,  the  villages  Syriac.  Here,  then, 
in  the  second  century,  the  question  arose  and  was  set- 
tled :  Whether  the  New  Testament  was  to  speak  out  the 
truth  in  whatever  language  the  believers  in  it  spoke,  or 
whether  the  truth  was  to  be  buried  in  the  sacred  grave 
of  the  one  only  language  in  which  the  Church  had  re- 
ceived it?  And  what  makes  this  matter  more  personally 
and  keenly  interesting  is  that  Tatian,  the  most  earnest 
of  the  Syrians,  tells  how  his  own  heart  was  touched 
and  his  mind  satisfied  by  the  Bible.  He  had  made  trial 
of  every  kind  of  religious  worship,  and  the  result  had 
sickened  him.  "  As  I  was  earnestly  considering  this," 
he  says,  "  I  came  across  certain  barbarous  writings, 
older  in  point  of  antiquity  than  the  doctrines  of  the 
Greeks,  and  far  too  divine  to  be  marked  b>  their  errors. 
What  persuaded  me  in  these  books  was  the  simplicity 
of  the  language,  the  inartificial  style  of  the  writers,  the 
noble  explanation  of  creation,  the  predictions  of  the 
future,  the  excellence  of  the  precepts,  and  the  assertion 
of  the  government  of  all  by  One  Being.  My  soul  being 
thus  taught  of  God,  I  understood  how  the  writings  of  the 
Gentiles  lead  to  condemnation,  but  the  Sacred  Scriptures 
to  freedom  from  the  world's  slavery,  liberating  us  from 
thousands  of  tyrants,  and  giving  us  not  indeed  what 
we  had  not  received,  but  what  we  had  once  received  but 
lost  through  error."  This  fragment  of  the  second  cen- 
tury autobiography  is  not  only  decisive  as  evidence  of 
the  policy  of  the  early  Church  in  the  matter  of  transla-. 


LITERARY   WORK 


43 


tion  and  diffusion  of  the  Scriptures,  but  it  is  in  itself 
and  in  its  far-reaching  results,  an  eloquent  example  of 
the  missionary  value  of  that  policy. 

The  same  lesson  is  taught  when  we  look  at  Alexan- 
dria, the  next  in  order  of  the  Apostolic  Churches.  Our 
knowledge  of  Egyptian  Christianity  is  rapidly  increasing. 
We  know  of  four  Coptic  versions  of  the  Scriptures,  be- 
ginning with  the  second  century. 

When  we  reach  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries  we  are 
in  the  era  of  great  Bibles,  and  nearly  every  one  is  the 
result  of  missionary  work.  There  are  diversities  of 
operation,  indeed,  but  the  governing  principle  is  always 
the  same.  The  aim  is  to  translate  the  Bible  into  the 
language  of  the  people,  and  thus  put  it  into  their  hands. 
Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Latin  Vulgate,  it  is  one 
man  away  in  solitude,  like  Jerome  in  Bethlehem,  who 
does  the  work,  or  in  the  full  activity  of  Church  life  as 
Miesrob  was  when  he  gave  the  Armenian  Church  their 
Bible  and  constructed  their  very  alphabet  for  this  pur- 
pose. Sometimes  the  missionary  impulse  is  given  half 
unconsciously,  as  when  Ulphilas  felt  the  spell  of  Chris- 
tianity at  Constantinople  and  gave  the  Gothic  people  the 
first  of  Teutonic  Bibles,  five  hundred  years  in  advance 
of  the  earliest  Anglo-Saxon  Gospels.  But  nowhere  is 
there  an  exception  to  the  rule.  It  operates  wherever 
there  is  need;  and  only  because  of  the  fact  that  the 
German  and  other  invaders  of  the  Roman  Empire 
adopted  Latin  as  their  sacred  tongue  was  the  work  of 
translation  in  the  Western  Church  apparently  suspended 
for  nearly  a  thousand  years.  There  is  no  fallacy  more 
fallacious  than  that  the  Latin  Bible  was  provided  with  a 
view  to  the  protection  of  the  Word  of  God  from  com- 
mon use.  It  was  distinctly  the  reverse.  What  the  Syriac 
Bible  was  in  the  East,  that  the  Latin  Vulgate  was  in  the 
West. 


44 


PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 


The  millions  who  look  up  with  reverence  to  the  Czar 
of  all  the  Russfas  owe  their  Bible  to  Constantinople. 
The  Bible  which  is  now  circulated  among  them  is  the 
child  of  that  ninth  century  version  for  the  sake  of  which 
the  current  Russian  alphabet  was  invented  by  Cyril  and 
Methodius. 

Teutonic  Christianity  comes  into  view  with  the  Bible 
in  its  hand.  Twenty  editions  of  the  Latin  Bible  had 
been  printed  in  Germany  alone,  before  Luther  was  born, 
and  in  the  year  that  followed  the  nailing  up  of  the 
"  Theses "  at  the  door  of  the  church  at  Wittenberg, 
October  31,  1517,  the  fourteenth  known  edition  of  a 
German  Bible  took  place. 

It  is  an  exceedingly  solemn  thing  to  notice  that  there 
was  nothing  formal  and  final  to  hinder  the  work  of  the 
Bible  translation  and  Bible  ditfusion  from  being  done 
in  every  country  in  Europe,  whether  of  Latin  or  of  Ger- 
man race,  till  the  Council  of  Trent  took  its  fatal  decision 
in  154b.  Then  for  this  high  service  the  one  race  was 
taken  and  the  other  left  The  Jesuit  missions  are  the 
first  considerable  examples  of  learned  men  carrying  the 
Gospel  message,  abundantly  competent  to  translate  the 
Bible,  but,  as  far  as  appears,  not  doing  it.  (Edmonds, 
II.,  10-15.)  The  Roman  Catholic  priesthood  have  had 
exclusive  jurisdiction  in  the  Philippine  Islands  for  the 
last  three  hundred  years.  During  those  three  hundred 
years  the  priests  and  their  colleagues  never  translated 
a  single  Gospel  into  the  language  of  those  tribes.  (Fox, 
II.,  30.)  The  time  has  come  when  missionary  societies 
should  willingly  place  their  best  scholars  at  the  service 
of  Bible  societies  to  give  themselves  wholly  to  tliis  great 
task,  so  that  such  versions  as  are  sorely  needing  revision 
may  as  speedily  as  possible  be  brought  to  the  perfectness 
which  is  so  earnestly  desired.     (Thomas,  II.,  23.) 


LITERARY   WORK 


Neeti  of  General  Literature. 


45 


Exclusive  of  Bible  translation,  the  utmost  that  can  be 
said  is  that  a  considerable  number  of  books  and  tracts 
have  been  put  with  more  or  less  success  into  the  native 
dress,  that  school  books  have  been  provided,  and  that  a 
few  newspapers  and  periodicals  are  maintained. 
(Lovett,  II.,  41.)  Another  literature  is,  however,  greatly 
needed  for  the  building  up  of  the  Church  and  the  build- 
ing up  of  the  native  ministry — a  work  along  the  line  of 
commentaries,  and  Bible  exposition,  and  Church  history. 
CDearing.  II..  48.)  In  a  word,  we  must  have  a  growing 
Christian  literature  for  a  growing  Christian  Church. 
(Shearer,  II..  44.)  We  study  the  Bible  as  a  text  book 
in  our  schools.  We  have  very  few  other  books  for  our 
girls  to  read,  and  it  has  been  a  problem  for  years,  what 
to  do  with  those  girls  on  Sunday.  The  same  is  true 
of  the  boys*  school.  They  need  some  other  good  litera- 
ture that  they  can  read  on  the  Sabbath.  (Mrs.  Ashmore, 
II.,  71.)  We  have  taught  the  children  to  read,  and  hav- 
ing done  that,  we  must  put  something  into  their  hands. 
They  have  nothing  of  their  own.  The  men  of  India 
have  said  that  the  reason  they  never  taught  the  women 
to  read  is  because  there  was  nothing  fit  for  them  to 
read.  (Isabella  Thoburn,  II.,  72,.)  To-day  it  is  esti- 
mated that  in  India  there  are  a  million  women  that  can 
read.  Is  it  putting  it  too  strongly  to  say  that  this  in- 
struction by  the  Christian  Church  is  a  positive  injury, 
unless  good,  wholesome  literature  be  provided?  Read 
they  will,  once  taught  to  read,  whatever  comes  into 
their  hands.  It  is  for  the  Church  of  (Thrist  to  decide 
what  they  shall  read.  (Miss  Easton.  II.,  7Z-)  These 
women  are  shut  up  in  their  houses.  They  have  the  Bible 
and  the  tract.  We  want  to  give  them  something  to  read 
besides  the  tract,  something  that  will  be  helpful  and  in- 


46  PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS 

teresting  and  uplifting.  (Mrs.  Pettee,  II.,  70.)  In 
Korea  one  of  the  greatest  needs  is  for  reading  matter  for 
Christian  girls.  They  now  have  two  little  tracts  that 
have  been  gotten  out  for  the  women  and  girls.  That  is 
all.  There  are  hundreds  and  thousands  of  women  and 
children  whom  we  can  not  hope  to  reach,  and  can  not 
hope  to  get  to  us,  and  we  want  to  start  a  newspaper,  so 
that  we  can  feel  that  the  field  is  in  some  sense  covered. 
We  hope  that  once  a  week  it  will  be  scattered  all  over 
that  north  country  carrying  the  news  of  Christ.  (Mrs. 
Baird,  II.,  70-71.)  Too  great  importance  can  not  be  at- 
tached to  the  necessity  of  giving  our  literature  for 
children  the  utmost  simplicity.  I  have  a  wonderful  little 
book,  called  "  The  First  Book  for  Children."  It  is  a 
model  of  pure,  simple  Marathi,  and  has  been  one  of  the 
most  useful  and  successful  Christian  books  ever  pub- 
lished in  Western  India.  Dr.  Narayan  Sheshadri  calls 
it  "  A  body  of  Divinity  for  children."  It  required 
twenty-five  years  for  it  to  grow  up  to  its  present  form. 
(Bruce,  II..  66.)  In  every  part  of  the  field  a  higher 
class  of  work  needs  to  be  done,  since  the  majority  of 
the  larger  works  appeal  solely  to  native  Christian  read- 
ers, and  do  not  in  the  slightest  touch  the  non-Christian 
populations  of  India.  (Lovett,  II.,  42.)  A  million  stu- 
dents leave  the  Government  schools  every  year,  and 
there  are  fifteen  million  readers  in  the  country.  As  a 
rule,  though,  they  will  not  come  to  our  preaching,  they 
will  take  the  printed  page  and  read  it,  either  openly  or 
secretly.  (Bruce,  II.,  65.)  One  of  the  most  striking 
results  of  the  contact  of  Oriental  peoples  with  the 
Western  world  is  the  development  of  a  taste  for  reading. 
The  large  bookstores  in  India's  chief  cities  that  deal 
almost  exclusively  in  English  books,  are  the  outward 
proofs  of  the  immense  influence  English  literature  is 
gaining  over  the  Indian   mind.     In  the  bookshops  of 


LITERARY   WORK  47 

Bombay,  novels  with  such  titles  as  "  The  Mysteries  of 
Paris,"  crowd  the  shelves,  and  furnish  the  students  n 
source  for  improving  their  knowledge  of  English,  and 
sad  to  think,  a  source  of  corrupting  their  moral  life,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  false  idea  they  give  of  life  in  Chris- 
tian countries,  of  which  many  suppose  these  novels  are 
a  faithful  picture.  (Abbott,  II.,  66.)  Our  cheaper  re- 
ligious literature,  however  good  for  us,  is  not  exactly 
suited  to  them.  Seldom  does  one  see  a  religious  tract 
from  England  or  America  that  is  suitable  to  be  placed 
in  the  hands  of  a  Hindu.  The  emphasis  is  on  the  wrong 
place  for  the  Hindu  point  of  view.  What  India  needs 
is  a  high-class  Christian  literature  created  on  her  soil, 
written  with  her  own  peculiar  problems  in  mind  and 
published  in  a  form  adapted  to  the  pockets  of  the  great 
mass  of  her  readers.  (Abbott,  II.,  67.)  Periodical 
literature,  too,  needs  greater  attention.  Many  missions 
have  their  weekly  or  monthly  organs  which  have  their 
limited  circulation  among  Christians  and  non-Christians. 
But  the  insignificance  of  their  size,  the  unattractiveness 
of  their  appearance,  and  the  fact  that  they  are  edited  by 
those  who  are  busy  with  a  hundred  other  things,  makes 
one  feel  that  Christian  periodical  literature  lacks  proper 
support.  Instead  of  occupying  the  front  rank  in  evan- 
gelistic work,  pioneering  the  way,  meeting  week  by  week 
new  phases  of  thought,  as  current  events  bring  them  to 
the  surface,  and  forcing  its  way  by  its  attractiveness 
and  grasp  of  problems  affecting  the  Indian  mind,  it  is 
made  to  hobble  along  half  starved,  in  the  rear.  (Abbott, 
II.,  67.)  There  should  be  strenuous  efforts  to  secure  in 
the  great  centers  of  missionary  enterprise,  in  short, 
wherever  missions  have  passed  through  their  prelim- 
inary stages,  newspapers  or  magazines  devoted  to  the 
discussion  and  exposition  of  Christian  Truth.  These 
should   be   Christian   periodicals  in   a  very  real   sense. 


48  PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS 

They  should  deal  with  the  ideas,  life,  modes  of  thought, 
and  the  different  experiences  of  the  people  for  whom 
they  are  published.  But  they  should  be  issued  under 
Christian  control  and  used  as  channels  of  instruction  in 
Christian  truth.  (Lovett,  II.,  41-42.)  There  are  world- 
wide problems  of  the  day  which  no  writings  of  the 
apostolic  fathers  or  of  medieval  times  can  solve,  prob- 
lems which  were  not  then  in  sight.  In  order  to  capture 
the  attention  and  regard  of  the  best  minds  in  non-Chris- 
tian lands,  we  must  offer  to  them  the  highest  products 
of  our  own  intellects.  The  preacher  speaks  with  com- 
parative infrequency  and  to  comparatively  few.  When 
a  nation  is  born  in  a  day,  the  individuals  of  the  nation 
must  have  been  previously  instructed  by  the  printed 
page.  (Richard,  II.,  75-76.)  The  mission's  press  at 
Constantinople,  published  a  dozen  years  ago  a  physical 
geography  in  the  Turkish  language.  It  was  a  choice 
book,  carefully  prepared.  The  edition,  printed  in  Arabic 
letters  and  authorized  by  the  Government,  was  intended 
for  the  use  of  Mohammedans.  Again  and  again  Moham- 
medans expressed  appreciation  of  its  exposition  of  the 
qualities  which  make  nations  great.  One  Turkish  official 
said :  "  If  this  book  is  true,  the  teachings  of  our 
Mollahs  are  false."  The  inspiring  ideas  of  that  book 
of  science  had  a  circulation  and  influence  far  wider  than 
we  could  have  dreamed.  Histories,  biographies,  readers, 
primers,  such  as  are  issued  by  the  Christian  Literature 
Society  of  India,  and  its  namesake  in  China,  all  have  a 
place  in  this  class  of  literature  and  lend  themselves 
readily  to  the  moral  culture  that  we  need  for  mission 
schools.     (Dwight,  II.,  61-62.) 

Literary  Character. 

Up  to  this  time  most  of  the  literature  of  India  has 
been   translation,   not   in   the  ideas   or  illustrations  or 


LITERARY   WORK  49 

expressions  fitted  to  the  life  and  thought  of  the  country, 
but  literal  translations  of  our  Occidental  books,  which 
are  in  a  very  large  measure  unfitted  for  the  Oriental 
mind.  This  has  been  very  largely  due  to  the  fact  that 
Christian  literature  has  no  recognized  place  in  the  work 
of  most  missionaries.  It  is  relegated  to  their  spare  mo- 
ments. It  is  a  side  issue,  put  upon  those  already  greatly 
overburdened  with  other  work.  I  think  the  time  is  fully 
ripe  for  certain  missionaries,  both  men  and  women,  to 
be  set  entirely  free  to  devote  their  time  and  energy  to 
this  very  important  branch  of  the  work.  (Miss  Easton, 
II.,  73-74.)  The  time  has  come  when  our  translating 
work  ought  to  be  done  upon  more  scientific  principles 
than  allowing  an  individual  translator  to  go  his  own 
way,  unguided  by  all  the  gathered  experience  of  the  past. 
(Edmonds,  II.,  24.)  Workers  in  every  department  of 
the  Christian  literature  field  should  maintain  as  their 
ideal  the  production  and  publication  of  books,  tracts,  and 
periodicals  in  harmony  with  the  ideas  and  environment 
of  the  people  among  whom  the  mission  is  at  work,  and 
written,  wherever  possible,  by  natives  with  the  assistance 
and  guidance  of  competent  missionaries.  (Lovett,  II., 
42.)  The  large  success  of  a  long  list  of  Americans  and 
Englishmen  engaged  in  literary  work  is  due  to  this: 
That  they  have  stood  behind  their  native  scholars  and 
given  the  outline  of  the  thought  to  them  and  allowed 
the  literary  finish  to  come  from  the  Chinaman's  own 
pen.  (Sheffield,  II.,  45.)  Not  many  missionaries  pos- 
sess that  dramatic  talent  which  would  enable  one  to 
see  the  thing  with  a  native's  eyes.  Some  few  have  it. 
It  has  been  my  privilege  to  associate  with  these  men 
and  to  bear  witness  to  the  wonderful  powers  which 
they  had  over  these  languages ;  but  still,  they  were  not 
natives,  and  not  one  of  these  gifted  men  would  have 
dared  to  commit  to  print  what  he  had  prepared,  unless 


50  PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS 

he  had  in  some  measure  allowed  it  to  pass  through  the 
alembic  of  a  native's  mind.  There  is  to-day  in  the  em- 
ploy of  the  American  Board  a  gifted  young  Greek  who 
is  capable  of  doing  the  highest  literary  work.  For  want 
of  means  his  brilliant  talents  are  not  utilized.  This  man 
whose  scholarship  is  recognized  by  his  own  people  is 
rusting,  so  far  as  his  highest  equipment  is  concerned, 
because  God's  people  have  not  yet  awakened  to  the  re- 
sponsibility which  rests  upon  them  to  put  into  the  hands 
of  this  native  brother,  under  the  guidance  of  missionaries 
for  the  selection  of  material,  the  means  to  prepare  that 
literature  which  is  necessary.  (Sampson,  IL,  57.)  In 
the  Bombay  Presidency  there  is  a  man  in  the  prime  of 
life,  a  Brahman,  a  Sanscrit  scholar,  with  a  mind  deeply 
philosophic,  a  poet  whose  verses  are  loved  and  prized, 
and  which,  notwithstanding  their  deeply  Christian 
fervor,  are  sought  for  by  the  Hindu  press,  a  man  who 
could  edit  a  magazine  with  judgment,  and  make  it  ac- 
ceptable to  Hindu  and  Christian.  But  the  door  of  a 
providential  opening  stands  only  half  used,  because 
Christian  givers  have  not  realized  the  place  this  sort  of 
literature  might  occupy  if  given  the  support  its  impor- 
tance deserves.  (Abbott,  II.,  68.)  In  the  words  of  that 
man  of  eminent  success  in  this  branch  of  work.  Dr. 
Murdoch  of  India:  "  The  most  effectual  way  of  putting 
truth  into  the  minds  of  a  nation,  is  to  put  it  into  its 
schoolbooks."  Such  minds  will  hold  to  the  purpose  of 
making  each  book  a  simple  but  trusty  guide  to  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  science  to  which  it  relates,  but  the  Chris- 
tian personality,  the  high  principles,  and  the  love  of  hu- 
manity of  the  writer  will  cling  like  a  subtile  perfume 
about  the  book.  The  writer  of  school  books  must  be 
one  who  makes  literature,  and  not  a  mere  catalogue  of 
facts.  (Dwight,  II.,  61.)  There  are  extraordinary  fa- 
cilities for  the  expression  of  the  deepest  spiritual  truths, 


LITERARY   WORK  5I 

bound  up  with  the  language  of  the  very  simplest  human 
being  who  ever  spoke  at  all.     (Edmonds,  11. ,  25.) 

Printing  and  Distribution. 

A  mission  press  should  be  recognized  as  a  permanent 
and  essential  branch  of  the  propaganda,  to  be  developed 
into  the  highest  possible  usefulness,  and  provided  for 
accordingly  in  a  large  and  liberal  way.  It  is  well  to 
own  the  building  in  which  the  press  is  located,  as  well 
as  the  plant.  The  business  manager  should  be  a  lay- 
missionary,  with  thorough  training  as  a  printer  and 
manager.  Job  work  should  be  taken  with  caution.  The 
best  way  to  secure  self-support  is  by  increasing  receipts 
from  subscriptions  and  from  advertisements  in  our  pub- 
lications. (Brown,  II.,  SO-51.)  It  is  greatly  to  be  de- 
sired that  all  the  employees  of  a  mission  press  should  be 
Christians.  Says  Mr.  Rudisill :  Some  Christian  boys 
whom  I  took  fourteen  years  ago  are  now  skilled  work- 
men, and  one  of  them  is  foreman  of  our  job  department. 
The  foreman  of  the  electrotyping  foundry  is  another 
instance  of  how  native  Christian  talent  may  be  utilized. 
The  departments  of  an  up-to-date  missionary  press  be- 
come by  this  method  so  many  industrial  schools. 
(Rudisill,  II.,  55-56.) 

Seventy-eight  years  ago,  exiled  from  Syria,  the 
Protestant  missionaries  established  their  first  Arabic 
printing  press  on  the  island  of  Malta,  transferring  it 
twelve  years  later,  1834,  to  Beirut;  where  for  sixty-six 
years  it  has  been  steadily  pouring  forth  Christian  litera- 
ture, for  the  vast  field  of  Arabic  readers.  (Hulbert,  II., 
46.)  The  Bible  Society  is  the  natural  and  inevitable 
corollary  of  the  Reformation.  At  the  present  time  more 
than  half  of  the  Bibles  issued  go  into  foreign  countries 
and  are  used  directly  for  the  work  of  foreign  missions. 
(Fox,    II.,    29.)      The    Religious    Tract    Society    was 


52  PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS 

founded  in  1799  "  To  promote  the  dispersion  of  religious 
tracts,  and  to  develop  the  evangelical  doctrines  of  the 
Gospel."  Step  by  step  throughout  the  century  the  So- 
ciety has  been  led  in  the  providence  of  God  to  become, 
on  the  one  hand,  a  great  publishing  house,  circulating 
all  classes  of  Christian  literature,  and,  on  the  other,  a 
great  missionary  literature  society,  helping  workers  in  all 
sections  of  the  Evangelical  Church.  (Lovett,  II.,  40-42.) 
The  American  Tract  Society  has  issued  at  its  own  ex- 
pense, for  circulation  abroad,  4,966  publications,  of 
which  955  are  volumes.  A  description  of  these  publica- 
tions can  not  be  given  here ;  they  include  tracts,  cate- 
chisms, primers,  commentaries,  parts  of  Scripture,  and 
other  volumes,  such  as  a  Bible  dictionary,  in  Arabic  at 
Beirut,  in  Telegu  at  Madura,  in  Chinese,  in  Spanish  at 
New  York ;  the  "  Peep  of  Day  "  series  for  the  children 
of  Asia  Minor,  Syria,  and  Palestine,  all  living  books 
which  contain  the  old  truths  in  the  thought  of  the  pres- 
ent day,  set  forth  by  missionaries  and  native  preachers. 
(Shearer,  II.,  43.)  For  many  years  the  Christian 
Literature  Society  of  India  has  published  annually,  in 
the  various  languages  of  India,  more  books  addressed 
to  the  moral  and  spiritual  needs  of  the  people  than  all 
other  societies  put  together.     (Patterson,  II.,  47.) 

The  question  how  to  find  a  market  for  mission  books 
is  a  very  important  one.  It  is  a  commercial  business, 
although  its  object  is  not  to  get  returns  in  money  so 
much  as  to  get  the  books  into  circulation.  The  books 
should  be  made  attractive,  the  prices  should  be  made  as 
low  as  possible,  and  intelligent  native  salesmen  should 
be  employed,  and  lastly  the  books  should  be  advertised. 
We  can  use  the  power  of  advertising  where  the  mer- 
chants themselves  do  not  know  enough  to  advertise ;  we 
should  make  the  advertisements  in  such  a  form  that 
they  will  attract  the  eye,  even  the  eyes  of  those  who 


LITERARY    WORK  53 

can  not  read,  and  attract  their  attention,  and  thus  en- 
large the  sales.  (Riggs,  II.,  58-59-)  Newspapers  in 
mission  fields,  like  every  other  department  of  Christian 
work,  must  aim  to  make  themselves  self-supporting. 
One  of  the  items  that  enters  into  the  support  of  a 
paper  is  the  advertisements.  I  believe  that  advertise- 
ments can  be  used  with  discretion.  They  indeed  become 
the  chief  source  of  revenue  during  the  first  years  of  a 
paper.     (Correll,  II.,  49.) 

The  Bible  Societies  having  given  us  translations  of  the 
Bible,  we  use  colporteurs,  supported  by  the  Bible  So- 
cieties, in  scattering  the  Word  of  God.  (Parker,  II., 
31.)  Every  mission  field  where  the  natives  are  a  reading 
people  affords  numberless  illustrations  of  the  work  of 
colporteurs  preparing  the  way  for  the  mission  station. 
The  colporteurs  are  often  pioneers  of  the  missionary 
and  many  testimonies  to  this  fact  have  been  received. 
The  British  and  Foreign  Bible  Society  provides  for 
Eastern  lands  five  hundred  and  fifty  Bible  women,  who 
not  only  read  the  Scriptures  to  their  fellow-country- 
women but  also  teach  them  to  read.  (Thomas,  II.,  28.) 
Circulation  is  not  everything,  and  a  Bible  Society  can 
no  more  live  by  its  funds  or  its  issues  than  men  can 
live  by  bread  alone.  We  seek  readers  rather  than  buy- 
ers, souls  rather  than  sales.  The  man  with  the  Book 
must  be  the  man  of  the  Book,  with  the  Gospel  in  his 
heart  and  on  his  lips  as  well  as  in  his  hand,  a  true  mis- 
sionary of  the  cross,  who  endures  hardship,  ignores  in- 
sult, and  plods  steadily  on  his  way.     (Slowan,  II.,  19.) 


54 


PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 


STUDY  V. 
EDUCATIONAL  WORK. 

Education  Inherent  in  Christianity. 

It  is  the  nature  of  Christianity  to  educate  and  uplift. 
God  saves  the  man.  He  does  not  save  the  soul  while 
the  mind  and  body  are  left  unsanctified.  Of  preach- 
ing   the    Gospel    then    education    is    an    integral    part. 

In  non-Christian  lands  of  old  civilization  the  con- 
verts are  nearly  all  poor.  Hence  the  elementary 
Christian  school  gathers  the  out-castes,  and,  in  the  few 
years  before  the  grim  necessities  of  poverty  drive  the 
little  hands  to  labor,  does  its  best  to  broaden  the  horizon 
beyond  the  limits  of  the  hamlet,  and  irradiates  all  with 
the  gracious  presence  of  Him  who  bowed  all  heaven  into 
a  peasant's  life  in  Galilee.  But  Christianity  by  its  very 
nature  uplifts.  The  out-caste  gains  new  dignity,  his  mind 
new  powers,  his  children  have  new  ambitions.  The 
Christian  Church  must  assert  its  value  in  the  national 
to  play  in  the  life  of  the  nation.  Education  must  grow. 
In  the  lands  of  the  East  even  the  first  generation  of 
Christians  will  need  more  than  the  elements  of  knowl- 
edge. The  native  systems  have  their  own  standards :  the 
Christian  Church  must  assert  its  value  in  the  national 
life  by  obvious  intellectual  as  well  as  moral  strength. 
The  Christian  high  school  or  college  is  an  expression  of 
the  Church's  faith  in  its  own  future  as  a  permanent  fac- 
tor in  the  national  life.     (Barber,  II.,  113.) 

Necessity  for  Education  Found  in  Social  and  Educa- 
tional Needs. 

When  a  man  feels  the  divine  thrill  of  God's  love  in 
the  soul,  the  lower  and  more  subject  he  is,  the  more  cer- 


EDUCATIONAL   WORK 


55 


tainly  does  he  feel  a  great  material  uplift.  Can  you 
think  of  a  band  of  naked  savages  becoming  Christians 
and  remaining  naked?  Poverty  there  may  be  and  will 
be  in  connection  with  Christianity,  but  the  poverty  that 
was — that  grim,  hopeless  poverty — can  not  exist  with 
true  Christianity.  (Spencer,  II.,  164.)  Two-thirds  of 
the  people  of  Africa  are  hungry  simply  because  they  do 
not  know  how  to  feed  themselves.  .  .  .  They  are 
not  clothed.  There  the  man  is  naked.  How  is  he  going 
to  clothe  himself?  It  is  an  anomaly  to  see  a  naked 
Christian.  He  does  not  know  anything  about  making 
clothes  or  working  for  money.  Unless  the  missionary 
teaches  him,  he  will  remain  naked.  (Morris,  II.,  157.) 
India  with  its  caste  system  tends  to  make  every  Christian 
a  penniless  beggar.  In  most  cases  the  wages  of  a  non- 
Christian  laborer  are  only  a  part  of  his  income.  But  a 
Christian  has  nothing  but  his  wages.  He  is  disconnected 
from  his  former  relations.  He  has  no  longer  a  part  in 
the  joint  property  of  the  family.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
has  always  been  our  opinion  that  it  is  our  duty  to  assist 
our  Christians  to  rise  from  an  unworthy  poverty  to  a 
position  of  comparative  superiority  in  the  midst  of  the 
non-Christian  population,  so  as  to  enable  them  to  exert, 
by  an  enhanced  power  of  life,  a  wholesome  influence  on 
the  whole  nation.  It  is  partly  on  account  of  the  benefi- 
cent influence  of  Christianity  that  our  people  can  not  be 
content  with  their  former  style  of  life.  .  .  .  We  ex- 
pect them  to  go  to  church  on  Sunday  decently  dressed, 
we  hope  they  will  want  a  few  books ;  we  urge  them  to 
contribute  toward  the  expenses  of  the  church  to  pay 
school  fees  for  their  children,  and  so  on.  Then  we  must 
teach  them  how  to  provide  the  means.  (Frohnmeyer, 
II.,  160.)  Two-thirds  of  the  world's  population  can  not 
read.  Even  of  the  readers  many  are  victims  of  the  most 
puerile  superstitions  and  endowed  with  pitiful  emptiness 


56  PHILANTHROPY    IN    MISSIONS 

of  mind.  The  millions  whom  we  call  savage  are  far 
more  deficient.  .  .  .  They  must  learn  to  read  the 
Bible  if  Christianity  is  to  come  to  full  fruitage  among 
them.  (Conklin,  II.,  i68.)  The  time  was,  and  not  so 
long  ago,  when  the  only  training  which  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  give  those  born  from  heathenism  to  the 
new  light  of  the  gospel  light  and  privilege  was  knowl- 
edge of  the  Bible,  the  catechisms  and  formularies  of  the 
Church,  and  perhaps  the  ability  to  read.  Now.  it  is 
pertinent  to  inquire  what  forces  are  at  work  for  the  up- 
lifting of  those  whom  God  has  placed  in  our  hands  as 
pledges  to  the  final  conquest  of  the  kingdom  of  right- 
eousness. (Spencer,  II.,  164.)  Any  education  at  all 
presupposes  higher  education.  The  infant  school  re- 
quires teachers  who  have  passed  in  the  primary  stand- 
ards. The  primary  teachers  must  have  studied  at  least 
in  the  middle  or  grammar  school ;  the  grammar  school 
teachers  should  be  high  school  graduates,  and  the  high 
teachers  require  a  college  education.  Step  by  step,  led 
by  the  necessity  of  the  situation  the  advance  has  been 
made  from  the  lowest  to  the  highest  standards.  (Miss 
Thoburn,  II.,  139.)  The  sort  of  education  we  give  to 
our  own  sons  and  daughters  must  be  supplied  to  leaders 
of  thought  in  unenlightened  nations.     (Richard,  II.,  75.) 

Non-Christian  Education   Inadequate. 

Some  say,  give  the  people  Western  education  and 
they  can  then  receive  the  truths  of  Christianity.  This 
is  wrong;  it  would  be  the  body  without  the  soul. 
Equally  wrong  are  those  who  say.  Convert  the  people 
and  the  rest  will  take  care  of  itself.  That  is  the  soul 
without  the  body.  (Rachel  Benn,  II.,  192.)  Intelligence 
is  not  compatible  with  Buddhism  and  Shintoism  as  they 
are  familiar  to  the  people  of  Japan.  In  one  or  two  gen- 
erations the  Japanese  will  be  a  people  from  whom  the 


EDUCATIONAL   WORK 


57 


devil  of  idolatry  has  indeed  been  cast  out,  but  into  which 
have  entered  the  devils  of  a  godless  and  immoral  ma- 
terialistic civilization.  (Pieters,  I.,  528.)  The  so-called 
neutral  education  is  necessarily  anti-Christian.  Chris- 
tianity is  eliminated,  and  heathen  stories  fill  the  pages  of 
the  reading  books.  Thus  the  children's  minds,  at  a  very 
early  age,  are  saturated  with  the  very  ideas,  generally 
debasing,  which  an  enlightened  government  professes 
to  try  to  dispel.  (Mrs.  Bellerby,  II.,  121.)  In  the  differ- 
ent colleges  of  India  to-day  there  are  40,000  students, 
and  the  number  is  rapidly  increasing.  The  most  of 
these  are  in  the  Government  colleges  and  are  virtually 
infidels,  and  are  now  becoming  a  serious  danger  in  the 
land.  They  can  not  be  reached  by  the  ordinary  evan- 
gelistic agencies.  (Wilkie,  XL,  141.)  Is  the  Church  to 
look  on  and  see  the  whole  of  the  higher  education  un- 
moral ?  Purblind,  indeed,  would  be  her  leaders ;  utterly 
unstatesmanlike  in  their  criminal  neglect  of  obvious  op- 
portunity and  duty.     (Barber,  II.,  116.) 

Religious  Character  Emphatically  Christian. 

Every  mission  college  should  be  first  of  all  Christian. 
(ElHnwood,  I.,  239.)  The  higher  education  must  oi 
necessity  include  the  education  of  the  highest,  and  this 
is  impossible  unless  we  have  the  education  of  the  spirit- 
ual nature.  (Goucher,  II.,  141.)  All  through  the  course 
of  study  in  mission  schools  and  colleges,  the  supreme 
object  for  which  missions  are  founded  should  be  kept  in 
view,  as  though  the  schools  were  special  training  in- 
stitutes for  that  one  purpose — the  evangelization  of  the 
country  in  which  they  are  situated.  (Miss  Thoburn, 
II.,  141.)  The  missionary  purpose  is  to  enthrone 
Christ  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  whether  by  preaching 
or  hospital  or  school.  (Leonard,  IL,  119.)  The  one 
distinguishing  feature  of  the  missionary  college  will  be 


58  PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS 

that  the  Word  of  God  shall  have  the  place  of  honor. 
It  will  invariably  be  made  an  integral  and  indispensable 
part  of  the  course  of  study.  (Dodge,  11. ,  143.)  Our 
effort  is  to  saturate  the  minds  of  our  people  with  God's 
Word.  So  our  pupils  are  taught  to  repeat  passages  of 
Scripture.  You  may  say  many  of  them  do  not  under- 
stand what  they  learn.  Quite  true,  but  we  find  that  in 
after  days  these  passages  of  Scripture  come  back  to  their 
minds.  God,  the  Holy  Spirit,  enables  them  to  under- 
stand them,  and  we  find  these  same  people  coming  back 
to  the  missionary  to  enter  a  catechumen's  class.  (Laws, 
I.,  460.) 

Religious  Character  Determined  by  the  Personality  of 
the  Teacher. 

As  has  been  pointed  out,  and  as  has  been  observed 
throughout  these  studies,  it  is  the  personal  character  of 
the  missionary  which  decides  the  quality  of  his  work. 
In  colleges  on  mission  ground  far  more  than  at  home 
the  personality  of  the  teacher  is  the  chief  factor.  Unless 
he  is  a  man  of  evident  spirituality,  with  a  positive  desire 
and  purpose  to  bring  his  students  to  a  clear  apprehen- 
sion of  the  truth,  he  will  be  a  failure.  (Dodge,  II.,  143.) 
The  question  whether  any  college  established  in  a  mis- 
sion field  will  be  a  truly  Christian  college,  must  depend, 
not  upon  the  constitution  and  rules,  but  upon  the  per- 
sonal character  of  the  men  sent  out  to  direct  it.  (Wash- 
burn, II.,  130.)  Not  only  does  the  missionary  teacher 
gain  every  day  an  audience  which  his  itinerant  brother 
might  well  envy,  but  his  intellectual  interest  and  honesty 
speak  through  every  hour  of  the  day;  he  looms  large 
before  his  pupils  as  the  hero  who  has  won  the  fights 
which  they  must  face.  And  for  the  most  part,  to  the 
graduates  who  have  not  acknowledged  Christ,  the  mem- 
ory of  the  dignity,  the  Christian  character,  the  mental 


EDUCATIONAL   WORK 


59 


honesty  of  their  teachers  will  make  them  fair  in  their 
attitude  toward  their  teacher's  faith.  Experience  shows 
that  in  such  mission  schools  many  of  the  heathen  pupils 
become  Christian,  and  still  more  who  make  no  profes- 
sion of  change  have  yet  breathed  a  new  atmosphere 
which  has  altered  all  life  for  them.  (Barber,  II.,  115.) 
We  need  to  take  care  that  our  educationalists  are  not 
men  who  are  mainly  educationalists,  but  that  the  heads 
of  our  colleges  shall  be  men  most  filled  with  the  spirit 
of  Christ  and  the  ardor  of  evangelization.  What  a  pe- 
culiarly difficult  position  to  fill.  We  want  men  magnetic 
in  their  influence,  men  who  can  lay  hold  of  young  men 
personally;  we  want  men  so  filled  with  the  great  idea 
that  the  mission  school  is  the  means  of  leading  the 
pupils  to  know  Christ  in  the  most  susceptible  years  of 
their  life,  that  the  whole  atmosphere  of  the  school  shall 
be  pervaded  by  Christian  influence.  (Thompson,  II., 
118.) 

Educational  Character  and  Aims. 

The  Christian  school  must  stand  so  high  as  a  giver  of 
knowledge  that  no  secular  institution  can  afford  to 
point  the  finger  of  scorn  at  its  equipment  or  its  alumni. 
(Barber,  II.,  114.)  Such  institutions  will  thrive  only  as 
they  show  manifest  leadership  in  every  branch  they  un- 
dertake to  teach.  This  will  be  facilitated  and  insured  by 
strictly  maintaining  a  high  standard  of  scholarship. 
Their  graduates  will  be  seen  to  possess  qualities  not 
found  among  students  from  other  institutions.  (Dodge, 
II.,  144.)  An  illustration  of  scholarship  as  overbalanc- 
ing religious  antagonism  is  the  incident  where  the 
jealous  rivals  of  a  mission  school  in  India  posted  pla- 
cards denouncing  the  teacher  as  of  the  scavenger  caste. 
The  placards  led  to  talk;  and  the  only  way  the  man's 
enemies  could  specify  the  school  where  the  scavenger 


6o  PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS 

taught  was  by  describing  it  as  the  school  whose  scholars 
always  passed  the  Government  examinations.  (Goucher, 
II.,  141.)  How  important  it  is,  then,  that  mission 
schools  have  definite  aims  and  begin  with  the  children 
at  their  most  acquisitive  age.  The  native  impulses  or 
tendencies  of  children  and  the  interests  and  desires  into 
which  these  develop,  are  the  means  given  them  for  the 
beginnings  and  continuations  of  growth,  and  for  over- 
coming of  obstacles  in  the  attainment  of  valuable  aims, 
and  since  the  direction  and  amount  of  one's  energy  are 
dependent  upon  the  direction  and  extent  of  his  interests, 
it  is  highly  important  to  have  a  course  of  study  that 
appeals  to  the  pupil.  .  .  .  Strong  motives  are  the 
condition  of  work,  and  the  interests  that  grow  out  of  the 
native  impulses  mean  an  abundance  of  motive  for  life 
work.  (McMurry,  II.,  173-174.)  The  products  of  the 
school  are  not  things,  but  men.  (Smith,  II.,  150.)  We 
are  shifting  over  from  a  basis  of  "  How  much  do  you 
know  ?  "  to  "  How  much  can  you  do  ?  "  from  an  educa- 
tion that  emphasizes  information,  passive  listening,  and 
bookishness,  to  an  education  that  gives  one  a  masterful 
acquaintance  with  action,  with  things,  with  human  na- 
ture, as  well  as  with  the  treasures  of  thought  that  we 
inherit  in  books.  .  .  .  Attention  and  judgment  are 
acquired  in  having  to  do  things  with  a  real  motive  be- 
hind and  a  real  outcome  ahead.  (Scudder,  II.,  177.) 
The  power  of  educated  womanhood  is  simply  the  power 
of  skilled  service.  We  are  not  in  the  world  to  be  minis- 
tered unto,  but  to  minister.  The  world  is  full  of  need, 
and  every  opportunity  to  help  is  a  duty.  Preparation  for 
duties  is  education,  whatever  form  it  may  take  or  what- 
ever service  may  result.     (Miss  Thoburn,  II.,  132.) 

Advantages  of  Manual  and  Industrial  Training. 
It  is  sheer  cruelty  to  send  our  sons  and  daughters  out 


EDUCATIONAL   WORK  6l 

into  the  world  to  get  a  living  without  having  first  learned 
the  use  of  their  hands.  .  .  .  Moreover,  industrial 
work  has  great  discipHnary  value  for  the  mind.  It  de- 
velops the  power  of  observation  and  attention;  it  trains 
eye,  ear,  and  hand  to  precision ;  it  produces  order,  neat- 
ness, and  accuracy ;  it  inculcates  habits  of  industry  and 
thrift;  thus  it  gives  the  boy  more  than  a  trade;  it  gives 
him  power  to  succeed  in  any  trade  or  in  any  walk  in  life. 
But  it  does  even  more  than  this ;  it  leads  him  into  deeper, 
wider  sympathy  with  all  manual  laborers.  (Scudder, 
II.,  178.)  Industrial  training  does  not  interfere  with  the 
study  of  books.  I  was  in  charge  of  an  American  school 
in  which  a  number  of  pupils  each  spring  were  obliged  to 
leave  school  to  work  on  farms.  I  never  hesitated  upon 
their  return  in  the  fall  to  advance  them  with  their  class ; 
they  soon  caught  up.  (Reader,  II.,  179.)  There  can 
be  no  over-education  in  the  all-round  sense,  though  in 
the  partial  sense  there  may  be.  .  .  .  The  education 
that  creates  aspirations  and  then  furnishes  the  tools  to 
carve  in  imperishable  forms  the  image  held  up,  is  safe, 
progressive,  expansive.  (Spencer,  II.,  165.)  There  is  a 
popular  contempt  for  manual  labor  which  prevails 
among  those  who  consider  themselves  educated.  It  is 
not  laziness  so  much  as  a  deep-seated  conviction  that 
work  of  any  kind  is  dishonorable.  ...  I  have  been 
publicly  accused  by  Indian  Christians  of  lowering  the 
social  status  of  the  community  because  I  advocated 
manual  training.  (Smith,  II.,  147.)  The  old  caste  sys- 
tem of  India,  for  example,  has  imbued  the  people  with 
the  notion  that  he  who  reads  must  be  waited  upon  by 
him  who  does  not.  Hence  the  school  girl  claims  exemp- 
tion from  manual  labor.  ...  To  each  girl  above 
eleven  years  of  age  is  assigned  the  charge  of  a  small 
child  for  whom  she  is  responsible  in  every  way.  She 
weaves,  makes,   and  mends  its  garments.     She  washes 


62  PHILANTHROPY   IN    MISSIONS 

and  dresses  it  every  day,  prepares  its  food,  and  hears  its 
prayers  as  they  kneel  together  beside  its  cot  placed  next 
her  own.  It  is  the  elder  girl's  place  to  tend  the  younger 
in  sickness  as  well  as  in  health,  and  in  short  to  expend 
upon  it  a  mother's  solicitude.  (Barnes,  II.,  155.)  These 
two  home  tasks  (cooking  and  sewing)  may  also  be 
strong  in  their  training  for  social  service.  The  child 
may  thus  be  led  to  feel  her  connection  with  the  working 
world  around  her;  may  learn  that  she  can  do  for  others, 
or  may  be  led  through  simple  tasks  at  first  to  the  inclina- 
tion to  help  in  greater  ways  in  the  world.  (Woolman, 
II.,  181.)  The  Livingstonia  Institute  is  wisely  avoiding 
the  mistake  of  surrounding  students  with  all  modern 
conveniences  and  comforts.  Thus  when  they  are  called 
away  to  teach  in  a  grass  hut  for  a  school  they  do  not 
feel  helpless  or  discontented.  The  work  in  the  institutes 
approximates  to  the  conditions  of  the  first  beginnings 
of  school  work  in  new  villages.  A  shed  of  wood  and 
grass  has  been  erected  along  the  sides  of  a  quadrangle, 
with  a  door  on  one  side  and  an  open  court  in  the  middle, 
shaded  by  a  tree.  Such  a  school  natives  can  easily  pro- 
vide for  themselves  at  most  villages.  Those  under  train- 
ing are  required  to  make  the  most  they  can  of  it  by  thti ! 
own  ingenuity.  (Daly,  II.,  125.)  The  child  must  be 
trained  to  act.  .  .  .  The  studies  we  give  a  child 
must  touch  his  interests ;  be  connected  with  the  life  of 
the  present,  and  lead  to  immediate  action.  .  .  .  Man- 
ual training  was  placed  in  our  curriculum  with  only  a 
partial  grasp  of  the  idea  of  combining  thought  and  ex- 
pression. The  mechanical  side  was  emphasized,  but  the 
thought  side  was  the  teacher's  rather  than  the  child's. 
We  must  plan  the  work  so  that  it  shall  require  executive 
thought  from  the  pupil,  so  that  his  own  self-activity  shall 
come  into  it,  and  the  whole  curriculum  shall  lead  to 
efficient  action.    ...    It  is  not  so  important  that  a 


EDUCATIONAL  WORK  63 

child  shall  do  a  piece  of  work  perfectly  at  first.  He 
should  be  so  interested  in  the  work  as  to  put  his  whole 
heart  into  it,  and  execute  the  idea  to  the  best  of  his 
ability,  his  own  will  power  acting.  A  class  of  children 
were  considering  a  question  of  patching.  They  had  to 
decide  what  to  do  in  a  certain  case.  For  nearly  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour  these  children  worked  hard.  At 
the  end  of  the  time,  with  quite  a  sigh,  one  of  the  girls 
said:  "  I  have  not  thought  so  hard  for  a  year."  (Mrs. 
Woolman,  II.,  181.)  The  will  may  be  made  strong  by 
developing  the  capacity  for  sustained  effort  and  for 
prosecuting  a  series  of  means  leading  to  a  distinctly  con- 
ceived end.  And  it  is  for  precisely  these  things  that 
manual  training  is  adapted.  Not  only  are  the  ordinary 
educational  processes  carried  on  simultaneously  with 
manual  training,  so  that  the  brain  shall  be  taught 
through  the  printed  page,  but  the  industrial  impulse  is 
in  itself  moral.  It  is  constructive;  it  brings  into  exist- 
ence what  is  good,  and  useful,  and  beautiful.  It  creates 
in  the  pupil  an  initial  interest  in  the  end  proposed,  be- 
cause the  successful  completion  of  each  step  in  the  work 
is  in  itself  a  stim.ulus,  and  because  the  completion  of  the 
whole  is  rewarded  with  the  joy  of  achievement.  (Mrs. 
Bruce,  II.,  183-184.) 

Necessity  for  Training  in   Teaching. 

The  solution  of  the  problem  of  educational  improve- 
ment in  mission  schools  lies  in  the  trained  native  teacher. 
And  further,  the  solution  of  the  problem  of  training  the 
native  teacher  lies  in  the  missionary  trained  to  train 
teachers.  (Conklin,  II.,  170.)  Of  the  mission  schools 
now  existing  112  are  universities  and  colleges,  546  are 
theological  and  training  schools,  and  at  least  half  of  the 
students  in  the  higher  schools  are  expected  to  teach. 
Here  are  at  least  50,000  teachers  in  the  course  of  prep- 


64  PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS 

aration.  The  students  who  are  to  preach  are  being 
taught  homiletics ;  those  who  are  to  practice  medicine 
are  being  taught  the  sciences ;  how  are  the  teachers  be- 
ing fitted  for  their  work?  I  venture  a  guess  that  in  all 
these  546  theological  and  training  schools  homiletics, 
the  art  of  preaching,  is  taught,  but  in  not  one-tenth  of 
them  is  pedagogy,  the  art  of  teaching,  taught.  And  yet 
at  least  three-fourths  of  the  graduates  will  be  teachers. 
(Conklin,  IL,  169.)  Our  educational  work  is  a  mighty 
power  and  it  is  worth  while  to  put  into  it  the  very  best 
superintending  and  directing  force  that  can  be  obtained. 
(Grant,  II.,  128.)  The  Mission  Board  which  establishes 
and  encourages  schools  with  the  money  of  the  Church 
and  does  not  require  a  training  in  pedagogy  for  its 
teachers  is  not  keeping  pace  with  the  march  led  by  the 
Light  of  the  world.  A  course  of  pedagogics  is  desirable 
for  all  missionaries  and  normal  departments  should  be 
considered  a  necessity  in  mission  seminaries  and  col- 
leges whose  aim  is  to  prepare  teachers.  (Conklin,  II. , 
171-172.) 

Ladies  who  expect  to  go  to  India  should  not  suppose 
that  they  will  be  able  to  teach  there  unless  they  learn 
here.  I  have  seen  ladies  come  out  who  have  never  had  a 
chalk  in  their  hands ;  they  have  been  sent  to  school  work, 
and  have  felt  themselves  perfectly  helpless.  Men  and 
women  are  alike  in  this.  Unless  we  learn  to  teach,  we 
shall  not  be  fitted  to  take  up  this,  the  greatest  work  that 
we  have.  (Sutherland,  II.,  127.)  Where  practicable  a 
normal  training  school  should  be  established  in  every 
district,  and  its  principal  and  her  missionary  helper 
should  control  all  primary  schools  in  the  district  and 
direct  all  their  operations.  (Mrs.  Bellerby,  II.,  122.) 
We  now  know  the  instruction  of  little  children  to  be  one 
of  the  most  difficult  things  in  the  whole  school  course. 
It   is   cruel  to   a   work  and   a  worker   to   send   her   to 


EDUCATIONAL   WORK  65 

such  labors  without  preparation.  .  .  .  It  is  not 
only  the  missionary  spirit  they  will  need ;  not  only 
the  constraining  love  which  is  essential  for  keeping  the 
heart  warm  and  devoted,  but  the  same  training  which 
we  need,  as  well  as  skill  for  service.  They  need  this 
more  than  we  because  of  their  harder  task.  (Miss  Tho- 
burn,  II,  132.)  The  upper  class  girls  are  trained  by  be- 
coming pupil  teachers  to  practicing  classes  formed  of 
children.  (Miss  Barnes,  II.,  156.)  It  has  been  our  ex- 
periences, proved  by  many  experiments,  that  we  have 
never  succeeded  in  any  trade  without  a  qualified  man- 
ager sent  out  from  Europe.  (Frohnmeyer,  II.,  160.)  I 
believe  that  the  time  has  come  when  there  should  be  a 
special  preparation  of  the  highest  kind  for  educational 
work  in  these  mission  colleges,  and  that  our  boards 
should  send  out  only  specially  prepared  men.  No  more 
consecrated  men  have  ever  come  out  than  some  who 
have  specially  prepared  themselves  for  what  some  would 
call  secular  work.     (Smyth,  II.,  132.) 

Evangelistic  Opportunity  and  Influence. 

Primary  and  village  schools  must  be  awarded  one  of 
the  foremost  places  in  all  missionary  enterprise.  They 
form  the  nursery  of  the  native  church,  and  are  an  indis- 
pensable factor  in  its  organization.  ]\Iany  in  a  heathen 
village  who  have  watched  the  life  of  the  teachers  will 
allow  their  children  to  attend  the  mission  school,  al- 
though they  would  not  listen  to  a  missionary  preaching 
or  receive  a  visit  from  a  catechist  or  pastor.  In  many 
cases  where  one  now  finds  a  flourishing  native  church  the 
original  seed  may  have  been  the  humble  primary  school 
taught  by  a  conscientious  follower  of  the  Lord  Jesus, 
whose  example  and  conduct  led  to  further  inquiry  into 
the  religion  which  produced  such  results.  (Mrs. 
Bellerby,  II.,  122.)     The  man  who  comes  into  the  coun- 


66  PHILANTHROPY   IN   MISSIONS 

try  with  the  tools  of  industry  gets  at  the  heart  of  the 
people,  the  great  middle  class,  who  are  everywhere 
the  backbone  of  the  nations.  (Spencer,  II.,  165.)  It  is 
evangelization  by  practical  illustration  of  Christian  dili- 
gence, honesty,  and  respectability.  (Frohnmeyer,  IT  . 
158.)  It  affords  the  Christian  the  opportunity  of  bridg- 
ing over  the  gulf  that  separates  the  foreign  missionary 
from  the  orthodox  Hindu,  and  has  an  influence  that 
can  not  be  overestimated,  not  only  in  disarming  preju- 
dice, but  in  drawing  men  to  Christ  as  the  Saviour. 
(Smith,  II.,  148.)  A  college  for  the  higher  education, 
established  in  any  large  city  in  China  is  a  great  recon- 
ciler, and  affords  a  platform  upon  which  the  leaders 
among  the  Chinese  and  the  leaders  of  the  Christian 
Church  can  stand  together.  Such  institutions  aid  largely 
in  the  general  stirring  up  which  is  necessary  in  diina, 
and  which  seems  to  be  necessary  in  every  country  before 
Christianity  can  be  accepted.  Christianity  is  the  religion 
of  the  living  and  not  the  religion  of  the  dead,  and  every- 
thing that  the  Christian  Church  can  do  to  awaken  a 
higher  and  more  active  intellectual  life  among  the  peo- 
ple will  aid  them  in  the  acceptance  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion. (Smyth,  II.,  130.)  We  are  happily  familiar  at 
home  with  mighty  waves  of  spiritual  influence  which 
sweep  from  time  to  time  over  our  churches.  Now,  ordi- 
narily the  Holy  Spirit  does  not  move  on  heathen  popula- 
tions in  this  wondrous  way.  He  does  mightily  save 
men  in  every  heathen  land;  but  a  revival  in  the  sense 
that  we  have  learned  to  associate  the  term  with  the  la- 
bors of  such  men  as  Moody  does  not  occur  among  the 
unprepared  Chinese  and  Hindus.  The  remarkable  thing 
is  that  they  do  occur  amidst  the  generations  that  have 
been  leavened  by  the  intiuence  of  Christian  schools. 
When  the  Rev.  Thomas  Cook,  one  of  the  most  successful 
of  English  evangelists,  made  a  special  campaign  in  Cey- 


EDUCATIONAL   WOJRK  67 

Ion,  he  found  many  brought  to  conversion,  but  with 
scarcely  an  exception  every  convert  had  been  educated 
in  mission  high  schools.  (Barber,  II.,  116.)  The  far- 
reaching  effect  of  the  mission  educational  work  as  an 
evangelistic  agency  can  be  traced  in  mulliludes  of  an- 
ecdotes from  the  field.  Dr.  Chamberlain,  of  India,  tells 
of  a  Hindu  judge  who  urged  his  fellow-townsmen  to  put 
a  missionary  over  a  school  which  they  had  just  estab- 
lished. He  said  to  them  if  you  want  your  sons  to  be 
noble,  upright  men,  put  this  school  under  charge  of  the 
missionary  and  have  the  Bible  taught  in  it  daily. 
(Chamberlain,  I.,  504.)  Mr.  D.  G.  Barkley,  of  the  In- 
dian civil  service,  tells  of  the  son  of  an  Indian  prince, 
as  one  of  a  party  of  Cambridge  students  engaged  in 
evangelistic  work  for  children  in  Ireland.  The  father 
of  the  young  man  had  been  educated  in  a  mission  school 
in  India.  (Barkley,  I.,  507.)  The  head  of  one  of  the 
great  Christian  Churches  of  the  East  said  to  Dr.  Wash- 
burn not  long  ago,  that  among  all  his  people  the  only 
young  men  who  really  believe  in  God  and  Christianity 
are  those  who  have  been  educated  in  Robert  College  at 
Constantinople.  (Washburn,  II.,  130,)  A  prime  minis- 
ter of  Jeypore,  an  educated  man  known  for  justice  and 
ability,  surely  did  not  speak  as  an  enemy  of  Christianity 
when  he  said  to  Dr.  Barrows,  "  All  that  I  have  and  am  1 
owe  to  my  education  in  Duff  College,  Calcutta."  He  was 
there  trained  by  Christian  men.  (Barrows,  I.,  333.)  A 
dignified  and  intelligent  Tamil  surgeon  in  Ceylon,  who 
showed  attention  to  an  American  missionary  visitor, 
gave  this  reason  for  his  kindly  feeling:  "I  was  edu- 
cated at  the  American  Mission  College  at  Jaffna.  Per- 
sonally I  owe  all  that  I  have  attained  to  the  American 
missionaries;  and  no  one  can  tell  the  incalculable  good 
they  have  done  to  my  people."  (Peck,  II.,  228.)  If  you 
go  into  any  of  the  villages  where  the  missionaries  are 


68  PHILANTHROPY   IN    MISSIONS 

at  work,  and  see  a  child — a  boy  or  girl  under  fifteen 
years  of  age — who  has  been  in  one  of  the  station  schools 
two  or  three  years,  he  will  meet  you  with  a  warm  wel- 
come and  a  bright  face.  He  is  a  missionary  in  that  com- 
munity ;  where  he  is  bringing  new  and  fresh  ideas — ideas 
of  life  and  light — of  the  Gospel  and  of  the  benefits  of 
Christian  education.  (Grant,  II.,  128.)  We  look  upon 
our  school  work  as  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  valuable 
and  most  direct  of  evangelistic  agencies.  If  I  could  go 
to  Lake  Nyassa  to  preach  at  a  village,  I  might  find  an 
audience  of  fifteen,  or  fifty,  or  five  hundred,  but  I  am 
not  able  to  get  back  to  that  village  for  months  to  preach 
again.  But  in  our  schools  16,000  pupils  are  each  day  re- 
ceiving a  lesson  in  the  Scriptures.  (Laws,  I.,  460.)  The 
bazaar  or  the  preaching  tent,  however  thronged  by  the 
ever-changing  multitudes,  is  not  to  be  compared  in  op- 
portunity with  an  institution  in  which  for  weeks  and 
months  young  and  plastic  hearts  are  brought  under  the 
influence  of  earnest  missionary  teachers.  (Ellinwood, 
I.,  239.) 


Princeton  Theological  Seminar/-Speer  Library 


1    1012  01092  2831 


Date  Due 

.:■ 

..A 2  0%(- 

' 

1 

Ui^i,<.<S'---^^''^^^ 

- 

>.««-*«r. 

pni.'  / 

'■,,»;r.-'**-**^% 

/ 

. 

'>#  »  ''^  f^  ^' 

\    f      *  .  '     ^  ^' 

V 

■^ 

/ 

:„_, 

#  c  1°96 

m 

jP 

(|) 

PRINTED 

IN  U.  S.  A. 

